Daryl's used to being lonely.

After a lifetime of it, it's all he's ever known— so much that he wasn't even aware he was lonely, not at first, for he had never been anything but. Until life went ahead and changed everything he thought true, throwing his entire world upside down. Now he's not alone anymore, will never be again, and he doesn't know what to do.

Because now he has a cluster, and seven became one.

...

There's a loud cry that echoes through the room— desperate, in pain— as a strange woman with dark hair wails and gasps, though what ails her is unclear to him. Her partner holds her from behind in the dirty mattress they're both sitting on top of, tight enough to keep her in place as she flails and thrashes around but careful enough not to hurt her. The man is whispering her incentives as he tries to comfort her, his voice low and calming, though he spoke in a language Daryl couldn't understand.

Still the woman thrashes and cries, her entire body convulsing as pain takes hold of her.

It's… eerie to watch. His vision keeps flicking and changing angles, and in a blink he's closer than he was before without even moving; the change is disorienting enough to make him balk before his eyes return to the wailing woman. There are tears in her eyes, and going down her partner's solemn face. Daryl blinks again, and he's at her side. There's no blood anywhere for him to see.

Is this a dream? Then why does it feels both so real and like a memory all at once?

Daryl's not sure how or when he got inside this low-end motel room, nor why he just keeps watching as the scene in front of him keeps going. He knows it should be confusing, that he should do something about it, yet the feeling never hits him. Or rather, it does but feels clouded, too hazy and faded for him to pay attention to his own confusion. Instead he just watches, almost in trance.

The woman stills, letting out a loud final gasp and suddenly it's like the entire world stopped— Daryl's not sure if he's even breathing, nor if she is; everything feels too much for a moment before he's in front of her again and their eyes lock together.

She smiles besides her tears, warm and motherly almost as if she'd been expecting him, and mouths something he doesn't catch. Her partner let go of his hold on her, pulling her dark hair coated with sweat away from her face with such tenderness and care it almost feels wrong for Daryl to see, before he lifts his other hand and shoots her in the head.

"I'm sorry."

And Daryl wakes up with a scream.

He jumps upright in his bed with a bolt, breathing heavily and heart going wild inside his chest as his brain tries to make sense of what's going on. There's no immediate threat that he can see in the shithole room he has inside of an even worse trailer, he ensures after a few seconds. Nothing that could shake him like that. What the hell happened? The time on his phone reads as nine in the morning and Daryl curses at nothing in particular. It's too fucking early for any of this bullshit.

Slowly, he tries to remember what he had been dreaming about, trying to will his brain past the hazy memory even as it hurts in the process. A woman crying, he remembers now; something was paining her though Daryl had no idea what, and a man was hugging her and comforting her with words he couldn't understand. She smiled at him, at Daryl, and then— shit, another nightmare then?

Daryl's getting fucking sick and tired of this already.

Though… it felt different.

Daryl had never dreamed about anything like that before, nightmare or not. His usual ones— the sound of a belt being undone soon to be followed by the pain, the house going down in flames, Merle dead on the ground with a needle in his arm or looking at him like he's in for a beating with disgust in his eyes— had never felt nearly as real, even when most of them are. And the woman… He didn't know who the woman was but still it almost felt like he did, like he has his entire life.

Like she'd known him, too, and had been waiting.

He shakes those thoughts off, getting up to throw some water in his face and hopefully be done with it. It doesn't matter, a dream is a dream no matter how realistic it feels. There's no woman, no motel room and certainly no gun; it's just his mind playing tricks with him trying to drive him crazy. And it's probably working too, who knows. He certainly wouldn't be the first Dixon to lose it.

The place is silent when he leaves his cramped bedroom for the bathroom meaning his pa is still out fuck knows where with whatever chick that was dumb, blind or desperate enough to want him back. Which, good. The least thing Daryl needs today is to deal with the drunk old man anyway so at least he has that to be thankful for; with both Merle and Will out of the picture he can have some peace and not have to worry about either of them bothering him.

"A pain in my ass, the both of them," he mumbles grumpily under his breath, before cold water hits his face and rouses the rest of him from the lethargy. He takes advantage of the fact that he's already there to brush his teeth as well and get rid of the awful taste of sleep mixed with the booze from last night, a taste he's been used to for years now since Merle gave him his first beer.

Out of the corner of his eye he catches the shadow of something— someone?— at the bathroom door watching him, but by the moment he gets up again from where he was bending over the sink there's nothing else there for him to see.

But the feeling stays with him throughout the day, together with his killing headache.

And so does the woman's face.

...

Somewhere else in Georgia, a man in a police uniform almost crashes the car he's driving to meet his partner when a woman with dark long hair appears from nowhere in front of it. She just smiles at him, warm and welcoming, not seeming to be able to hear him asking if everything is alright and if she needs any help even when he leaves his car uncaring of the traffic behind him to approach her.

A housewife late with her husband and daughter's breakfast sees the same thing, in the middle of her kitchen, and breaks a plate.

So does a woman mindlessly tending a horse, stopping her movements to stare at the woman that seemed to suddenly show up outside of the barn, and a firefighter in florida who sees her in the middle of a busy crowd in the streets. A man who has to do a double take in the mirror, and a woman with dreadlocks dropping her son at pre-school.

To them, she mouths the same thing:

"I see you."

And then she's gone, just as sudden, disappearing in thin air.

...

Later that day when Daryl's at work, lost in the familiar routine of the garage where he sometimes does temporary under-the-table jobs whenever possible to get some money, the prickling feeling still stays with him; the work is heavy and busy, keeping his hands always occupied with something or another, but the hairs on the back of his neck keep standing up at every second and the sensation of not being alone never leaves, nor does the throbbing headache so unlike his usual hangover.

It makes him so skittish and out of it that his boss— who never talks to him or looks his way unless necessary, just the way Daryl's always prefered it— notices and calls him out on it, not understanding why he was acting so distracted. Nor does Daryl, to be honest.

Daryl just shrugs, saying something about sleeping like shit the night before which isn't exactly a lie, and hopes it is enough to take the attention off of himself. Duke, the one calling the shots at the garage, just eyes him for a few seconds before nodding— either taking it for the truth or not caring enough to question him more about it— and give him a warning to pay attention and do his job.

"Sure thing, hoss," Daryl agrees easily enough, and thankfully that's the end of it.

But the dream haunts him still.

He barely even has to focus to remember it; the woman's pain and later her smile, the lines and details on her face, the gun against the back of her head— Daryl remembers it all, his mind replaying it over and over again. It doesn't fade away like dreams should, it never once feels foggy.

And if he tries, he can almost see her there right in front of him; as real and solid as Daryl himself.

Sometimes, he can almost swear he does.

Daryl tries, of course, to focus on his work and forget it all— hell, he even manages once in a while as he works in a car, the process familiar enough to lose himself in and ignore all the weird shit around him today— but it's still not enough, not really. He still feels watched, sometimes even going as far as feeling a presence by his side. He still thinks about the woman.

It should freak him the fuck out.

But it doesn't, and that scares him even more than she could ever be able to. He doesn't understand what's happening to him nor why, and Daryl can't help but feel like he's losing his mind; but the memory of the dream is comforting, in a way, not frightening like he knows it should be. The memory of the woman's smile makes him feel… something, inside of him, and he knows it ain't fear.

So when Daryl's finally done in the garage and is able to leave in peace he ignores all his plans to buy much-needed groceries and instead drives by the liquor store, and then proceeds to drink himself into oblivion before the sun is even fully down.

He may not know what the fuck is going on, but he's always known a way to get his mind out of things.

At least his daddy taught him one thing right.

...

At the same time somewhere in Atlanta, a man loses his balance and slips on nothing within minutes of finally getting to work and almost falls down. Oh crap, he thinks, as the whole room seems to spin around him. Luckily his boss wasn't there to see, as he almost dropped the pizzas he's supposed to deliver today. He'd be fired, no doubt!

"Shit! Are you ok?" someone calls out to him, sounding worried, at the same time the speaker stops him from falling on his ass and embarrassing himself even further. "Your face is all red, man. You sick or something? That why you're late?"

"I don't know, T… Maybe? My head's been hurting all day, and I just got really dizzy all of a sudden. And earlier…"

He interrupts himself, not sure of what to say or even if he should say it at all.

"I feel weird today," he finishes lamely.

The words come out slightly slurred however, without him even meaning to, and his movements are clumsy and almost sluggish as he tries to stable himself again; it doesn't really worry him, for some reason. Instead he feels… loose? His friend seems to catch on that, raising his eyebrows at him in disbelief and looking at him up and down.

"You been day-drinking? Without me?"

He shakes his head, making a face. "I don't really drink, you know that."

"Sure you don't. Hey, tell the boss man that, not me - I wasn't born yesterday," comes the sarcastic reply, and before he knows it he's being pushed back into the staff room where he just locked his stuff up for the day. "C'mon man, I'll cover your shift. You can't work like this. Just go home and sleep it off, and tell me about it later. And call me next time!"

"But I didn't drink," he protests unconvincing even to his own ears. It's true that he feels drunk, he just doesn't know how.

Has he been drugged without even noticing? It'd explain a few things, at least.

"Sleep it off!"

And he ends up going home to do exactly that, with his friend looming over him until he agrees to go— confused to his core and with a feeling of guilt and shame that doesn't belong to him settling on is stomach and making him sick. As if the day couldn't get any worse.

...

A few days pass and the woman's face is still just as clear in his mind, feeling just as real, though Daryl's thoughts are no longer haunted by hear at every second of his day— hasn't been in a while— and at times he's even able to forget the unsettling dream altogether and act like it never happened at all. It's a relief, really, and it would be great news for him if it had been just that.

It's not.

Sure, things seem to calm down and even his headache finally goes away by itself after a couple of days of unstopping pain. But.

Shit also gets a lot weirder.

Daryl's laying down in bed with a book in hands when suddenly a siren goes off sounding so loud he could almost swear it was right by his ear, scaring the shit out of him and making him get up in jump— but there's no fire truck outside when he checks, with his heart still going off in his chest, and none of his neighbors in the trailer park seemed to have heard anything. One day he wakes up and he can feel bruises on his arms— a feeling he's overly familiar with, after all those years— yet Daryl knows there are none; the pain stays for a while though his skin is clear of purple.

And that's not all, there's the fucking pizza as well.

The smell keeps following him around at times, never leaving until hours later, making his stomach complain in crave and pissing Daryl off as he can never find the source before he eventually give up and just order pizza for the fifth time that goddamn week, to the unhappiness of his wallet.

It's starting to get to him, to say the least.

The feeling of not knowing what's happening to him, the uncertainty of whether something is real or not… the fear of losing his mind completely, of becoming as twitchy and delusional as one of Merle's many cokehead friends.

But unlike in that first day now Daryl barely has to try to hide it, now that he knows more or less what to expect— he may never be sure of what's real and what's not, but after so long suppressing all and everything near his family, it's not so hard to apply it to the situation; he keeps his feelings hidden, not giving away anything be it confusion, a flinch or any other feeling that just can't be his yet seems to creep on him all the same. He keeps his head down at sudden loud noises and pretends he doesn't notice anything.

He keeps his distance, even more than he already did before, and people don't even blink at it or seem to notice.

Daryl learns how to ignore the sirens and the smell of smoke, ignore the ache of bruises that aren't there and the anger and helplessness that he could almost mistake for his own. He ignores when one day he looks at a color and thinks "That's Cerulean," though he had no way of knowing that, and he ignores the glimpses of horses though the corner of his eyes.

He can't ignore the pizza— not yet anyway, and not for the lack of fucking trying— but he learns how to ignore all the rest.

It's enough at least; denial helping keep him sane as his own mind seems to keep pulling trick after trick on him until he can no longer really trust it, and the booze helps him forget it all later at night and numb his worries. It's good enough.

It has to be.

...

The crashing sound of a glass being smashed in the distance startles a woman just as she tucks her son into bed, making her sit still— alarmed, ready to listen for more— where before she was leaning over to give him a goodnight kiss just as she did every night.

"Did you hear that, peanut?"

"Wha', mama?" he asks sleepily, yawning. "I didn't hear nothing."

The sound doesn't happen again, and silence follows as she can't hear anything else. Slowly, she allows herself to relax again and smile at him, not entirely faked as the sight of her son never fails to cheer her up.

"Hm… Don't worry about it baby, it's probably just mama being silly again. Now go to sleep."

Her son giggles, the sound sweet and innocent enough to drown her worries for a second and make her smile grow a lot more genuine. "You're being silly a lot, mama," he says, though he has no idea how true that is.

"That's true, I am. I'm sorry." She kisses the top of his curly hair gently. "Good night, peanut."

"G'night."

There's no broken glass anywhere inside her house.

...

Daryl goes hunting that weekend, spending his days deep into the woods; it's almost natural to him, really, to crouch in the dirt with the familiar weight of a crossbow in his hands and his focus on his prey and his prey only, with no spare thought for all the weird shit that's been happening around him nor the broken beer bottles in his trailer. There, all he can think of is the trail in front of him and the dinner he plans on taking home.

The silence is almost comforting, the trees and all that green feels like home— it's the same Georgian woods where he once learned how to hunt and that has welcomed him all those years. And now he goes back there whenever he needs to think, or to not think at all.

So that's what he does.

He tracks, he hunts, he ignores the rest of the world— the weekend goes by in a blink and he's bagged enough to last him a while, exhaustion finally creeping in after two days out hunting small animals and tracking that deer. And not once he thinks about it.

It's quiet, peaceful even, and Daryl finds that he's missed that peace of mind.

He's missed a place where he can just forget himself, with no worries or problems, without having to watch his back at all times and watch out what he says and lets out; without having to worry about what people may see when they look at him. It feels right of him, to be out here hunting instead of in a stuffy city somewhere; even Sedalia, which ain't exactly a big town, at times felt too much for Daryl's tastes. With too many people, all staring at him in distaste.

Daryl's just another Dixon for them, after all.

Just another white trash; a druggie waiting to happen, who will probably be locked away soon just like his brother.

But not out here, no. Here he can just be— be himself, be free.Not a Dixon, not what strangers with disgust in their eyes see nor what Merle and his father expect him to be. But him, just him. Just Daryl.

And shit, he's missed that.

When the weekend is over and it all has to come to an end, Daryl drives all the way back home in his old beat-up pickup truck with nothing but ease in his heart and the game he's bagged in the back, humming and singing in tune to a song he doesn't remember ever listening to but for some reason remembers all the words. He looks in the rear-view mirror and his reflection smiles back at him, for the first time in a long while.

And if he closes his eyes and listen, really listen, he could almost swear there were more voices singing together with him.

...

Daryl dreams about that motel room again, standing in the middle of it as he tries to remember when did he even fall asleep.

It feels different from the first one, though he can't say why. The woman is there, sitting in the bed though this time she's alone and there are no tears in her eyes. In a blink, he's so close he can see the lines on her face that speaks of age— giving even more detail to a vision already so vivid. She's worried about something, Daryl can tell; she keeps looking at the clock and then back at the door almost as if expecting someone.

Something is about to happen, and Daryl already has an inkling as to what.

"No, no, no, no," she mutters under her breath like a mantra, and so barely even audible that it takes him a while to notice it's a word.

The noise of the door suddenly opening and closing again quickly makes Daryl jump, scaring ten years off of him, just as it makes the woman startle and go for something hidden under the pillow— she doesn't take whatever it is out, though. Instead she just relaxes again and gives the newcomer a small sad smile, and once Daryl sees who it is he moves to the middle of the room in a blink again, trying to shield her away from the intruder; a protectiveness in him that he simply doesn't understand where it came from.

It's him, the guy that— the guy that shot her.

But he hasn't. Not yet, anyway.

He just walks right past Daryl, giving the woman a tender kiss on the forehead before settling down next to her— completely unaware of his presence there with them. Right… he's not really there. It's easy to forget with how real it all feels.

The two stare at each other, just as Daryl continues to watch them, and for a moment there he could swear they didn't need any words to speak before the woman shakes her head lightly and whimpers; all of her anxieties coming back at once as she seems to just melt in his arms, trusting him with her vulnerability and tears when before she didn't even trust herself.

"They're coming," she says with a voice so shaky Daryl could swear she was crying. "I— I can't."

The man says something in a foreign language— his voice a lull though his words are lost to Daryl— but it doesn't seem to calm her down. Instead she starts her desperate chant again, resting her forehead against his shoulder as he tries to get through her.

"I can't do this."

He holds her and Daryl looks away, not wanting to see as the man gives her another chaste kiss and pets her head so lovingly you wouldn't imagine he'd be the one to put a hole through it. Daryl doesn't— he can't understand what's happening.

All he knows is that he doesn't want to see the woman in pain again. He doesn't want her to die.

But here, he's merely a witness; he can't stop what will happen.

The man holds her face in his hands gently, as if holding something precious, grabbing her attention and making her look at him again. "You have to," he tells her in a heavily accented voice, a lot stronger than the woman's own soft accent.

"But I can't. I'm not strong enough."

"You are. You have to be, not for you but for them. You have to be strong," he says seriously, before whispering something in that language again against her cheek and kissing her tears. "You have to be strong for them."

She nods, her long black falling on her face. "I'm scared," the woman reveals. "For them, and for me. I won't be here for them. I won't..."

"I know."

"They won't understand."

"They may not, that's true. I know," he agrees, in that same soothing voice, "I'm sorry. I wish it didn't have to be like this, I do. But you know why you have to do this, it's better this way. And they won't be alone."

Daryl wishes he could ask what they're talking about, that he could interrogate the two and understand finally what's going on inside his own mind; understand why the woman has to suffer and die, and who they keep mentioning. But he can't— talking feels impossible, like he can't find the words nor the strength to do it, and he knows even without trying that they wouldn't hear him anyway.

It all already happened, his mind whispers to him, though he has no idea how he can tell.

"They deserve a fighting chance," the guy finishes, just as the room starts to fade into darkness and the first scream is heard.

And Daryl wakes up in cold sweat.

...

The sound of birds outside and the sun peeking through the window— and shit, did he forget to close it again yesterday?— is almost taunting as Daryl tries to even his breathing and calm his mind, the peaceful morning a direct contrast to his own sour mood and fast-beating heart. It's clear that he's woken up earlier than his usual, again, all because of the damn dreams.

The fucking dreams.

He looks around, almost as if expecting to see her in the middle of his room. He doesn't, but he sees notices something else: the place is a mess, looking far worse than he remembers last time he paid attention. When did this happen? Daryl mindlessly makes a note to himself to clean it up, lest he wants to live in the middle of trash like most people assume he does.

Later though, it can wait. He doesn't need to do it right now.

Maybe one of these days.

Daryl stumbles around his room and trailer like a zombie, with little care for the things around him and the occasional empty bottle or dirty laundry he has to kick out of his way as he makes a beeline to the small bathroom— tired and slowly, as if his bones were too heavy for him to bear, and with his body aching all over. Getting too old for this shit, he thinks to himself, and sighs.

He stops in front of the sink, hesitating.

There, in the small crappy mirror of his bathroom, he can see himself and the toll it took on him. The bags under his eyes a lot worse than usual, and his hair all over the place and sticking to his skin with the sweat from the dream (or was it a nightmare, rather? He can't tell anymore). Daryl can see the exhaustion creeping in, making him look a lot older than he is. Wearier.

A haunted version of himself.

The water is cold against his skin as he washes his face, trying to forcibly make himself and his body get over it and just wake up dammit. He'd thought, after the weirdness had diminished… well, it doesn't matter now, does it? He isn't free of whatever madness is over him; the dream came back, the woman, almost just as vague and confusing.

And it felt… real, sure, but also less.

Less something, everything— less tangible, less haunting. Different from the first time. Like watching a movie where you already know what's going to happen instead of seeing it right in front of you. A memory yet not his own.

It unsettles him all the same.

He looks up from the sink with another sigh, expecting to see his tired reflection again looking back at him, but instead he stares straight into another guy's eyes and time seems to slow down at the same time they both freeze, startled and not knowing what to do.

What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck.

The guy's eyes are as wide as his own, as he moves hesitantly almost as if not to spook a wild animal until his fingertips appear to touch the dirty mirror at the same time as Daryl touches it too on his side— their movements different yet in sync all the same, and Daryl didn't even know he was moving until he'd done it. From the way the man's eyes widen even more as he looks at their hands, he didn't either.

The glass under Daryl's fingers feels normal— unwashed maybe, as he can't even recall the last time he's bothered to clean it and there's a touch of grim on his fingertips, but overall nothing unusual. His hand doesn't go through, he doesn't feel where their fingers seem to connect.

A normal mirror.

But it can't be.

In the other side of the mirror, the guy looks as real and vivid as the woman from his dreams. More, even. Before she felt like a memory, something that was both there and wasn't. But this? It feels real, even though it shouldn't.

Daryl can feel the other's presence.

There's shaving foam all over the guy's jaw, and under it Daryl can still see the tellings of a beard as wild as the man's curly hair. He doesn't think he's ever seen him before, not that he remembers, but Daryl must have if he's hallucinating him. He's still holding a razor on his left hand and he's wearing— shit. A deputy's uniform. He's a cop. The guy's a pig.

He looks up at the guy's face again only to see he's also being scrutinized with both curiosity and puzzlement, but no judgement.

Huh.

There's a moment or two before their eyes lock together again, the sound of a clock ticking in the background the only thing to prove time is even still going by. None of this makes sense, it's too impossible. Too weird.

Again, what the actual fuck.

"What the fuck," the guy seems to voice his thoughts, his voice startling Daryl and him both and waking them from the daze, and then he's gone. And just like that, Daryl's reflection is back and stares back at him again like it had never even left.

Fuck. Fuck.

Who the hell was that?!