They'd been in more desperate times before this.
But that had been months ago. Time had a way of wearing the soul thin 穆craping away flesh and forming their pride into wasted skeletons.
Daryl had insisted they go out. If he'd had his way before Rick interfered, he'd have gone by himself. But Rick had grabbed onto Daryl's upper arm in the prison's yard. He immediately recognized that there were layers of clothing underneath Daryl's denim jacket.
It was growing cold. Even if Daryl wouldn't be back until tomorrow, he'd survive the night just by survival skills alone. Albeit only if the threat of walkers didn't get to him first.
Rick commanded Daryl to wait where he stood. He went in the cell block to order another able body. Since Daryl was too stubborn and lacked the patience for someone else to wake (and a tired body was a slow body), Rick came instead -despite Hershel's wise eyes as they traced Rick's steps from the cells to door.
They had been aimlessly walking in the thick, dead, frozen, Georgian woods for two hours.
The signals coming from Daryl (or lack of) raised Rick's hackles, instinct telling him that something internal was causing turmoil within his companion. It's only easy to read someone who hides themselves from everyone, when you've spent pain-staking months by their side.
Defending him. Protecting him. Going back for him when captured. Even fighting with him (in the beginning).
Caring about him.
Rick would go so far to say love, even.
They'd come across a hunting shack. It'd long since been abandoned, and the lock wasn't difficult to break away from the rotting wood holding the door closed. Daryl yanks it clean off and throws the rusted metal to the ground with a dull thump.
Of course, there's nothing worth value minus a pack of double-A batteries. Rick stuffs them in his jacket pocket and waits for his companion to finish his sweep. His eyes gaze from the small antique window by the door, back to Daryl, again, and again. But they haven't seen more walkers than the usual.
Two sweeps of his eyes back to Daryl, and he realizes that he's just standing there 吠solated to one spot, his eyes locked somewhere below. From what Rick can make of it, Daryl looks at a rotten rug. Holes erupt in the tan fibers that have been criss-crossed repeatedly over one another. Black splotches cover most of the rug that at one point, probably had been rejected and thrown into this wasted space.
Daryl's expression is fatigued. There's something lost in the way his eyes squint, as if trying to read a lost message in the mold.
They all lose it from time to time.
"Daryl.
"Mm?"
"Ya alright?
He wants to reach out and touch him lightly, like they usually do. It's become their thing lately. He hadn't even realized they'd been doing it until Beth pointed it out. But he knows now, thinking back on it, that it's their unspoken confirmation that everything's ok.
It ain't, this time. So he resists reaching out and letting his fingers graze the leather vest.
The woods are completely silent around them, except the sound of shallow breaths exhaling though the nose of the hunter. His eyes won't leave the damn rug beneath his boots.
Rick leans in closer to possibly examine his expression that's hidden by the hair that falls around his face. And that's when Rick sees what he's been looking at.
Their is blood on the toe of his boot.
It's not his, nor is it fresh. It'd been there long enough to dry 穆ince days ago.
He doesn't need to ask who the blood belongs to. But it makes sense now. Daryl had been detached from what had happened. They'd only just recently settled back into life. The reality of what happened to Merle probably hit him as he rose from bed today 紡nd he'd wanted to retreat to the forest where he has always been emotionally secure.
Rick already knew bits and pieces of what had happened. He knew that the Governor killed Merle. And that Daryl found him as a walker 肪efore ending Merle's last existence on this planet.
He reaches out and rests his palm on the side of Daryl's head.
"I'm sorry about what happened to Merle.
He genuinely meant it. Despite what Merle did to Glenn, or what he assisted the Governor in doing to Maggie. He was still a part of Daryl in ways Rick would never understand. But he understood Daryl. And he understood that Daryl hadn't had anyone close to him before, except Merle.
He'd seen the scars on Daryl at the farm after he'd been shot by Andrea. And sometimes, when he'd pace the cells late at night 紡s he often did when they'd first found the prison, he'd heard the nightmares mumbled from the gasping lips of Daryl.
Sometimes he called out for Merle.
"Merle, help..."
Daryl shakes his head. He steps out of Rick's grasp, and Rick lets him. He turns his back to his leader, and when that's not enough, he then crooks his head away completely.
His shoulders start shaking.
Rick reaches out again. As if touching a frightened dog, Rick places his hand on Daryl's shoulder. When Daryl doesn't react, Rick attempts to pull him in.
He starts violently shaking, and before Rick can pull him close, Daryl slips from his arms and drops to the floor. His knees hit the ground following his weight. The crossbow slides from it's place on his shoulders and smacks the ground.
Rick doesn't say anything.
Instead, kneels down and presses his chest to Daryl's shoulder, his own legs folded beneath him and next to the hunters.
Rick just holds him there, while his companion breaks into a fragile mound of human 穆tripped from the ego, -the mask of sanity that they all wear despite the pain they feel.
This goes on for some time. Rick lets it happen, patiently, while his arms are draped around slack shoulders. By the time the sun began to cross the frosted window pane, Daryl stopped shaking. But his body is almost touching the floor out of exhaustion. Yet Rick holds him upright from laying on the rotten rug.
"I'm sorry about Merle,he whispers again into Daryl's overgrown and dirt-covered hair.
Daryl finally responds by slowly nodding his head. He inhales the wetness from his leaking nose. He doesn't say anything. Neither does he immediately pull away from the contact.
Sometimes they all just needed to remind themselves that they were human. Pain, loss and heartbreak was a consequence of still being alive these days. And letting yourself melt into the arms of another human was one of the few reminders that they were in this together. In this fucked up chaos, trying to sustain a life out of nothing.
Nothing -except each other. Because each other was all the good they had left of themselves these days.
Rick doesn't say anything else. He doesn't feel the need to. The sun has crossed the glass by now. They stand from where they had rested on the carpet.
Silently, they do a final sweep on the shack.
Daryl finds a metal-tin of mints under the cushion of a chair.
He offers one to Rick, and then stores the little box in his pocket. He'll make use of it later.
As they step back onto the frozen ground, Daryl stops and looks at Rick. For the first time since Merle's death, Daryl holds eye contact. His weary eyes still carry the evidence of his breakdown, where the blue of his orbs stand out against the fire behind them. But there's a softness in them, like months of pain has been washed away.
He lifts the corner of his mouth ever-so slightly, letting his gaze drop from Rick. As they begin to head down the hill, Rick reaches out and touches Daryl on his stomach.
Though such a small act of communication, it's one of the few things they have these days to share with each other.
Personal contact.
Rick wants Daryl to know that things will be okay. Despite the pain, and the scars they carry like chronicles of who they once were.
Together, there wasn't anything they couldn't get through.
After-all, they'd been in more desperate times before this.