Hey guys!
So I'm feeling rather theatrical and needed to get my feels out. Here's a short, dramatic little piece centering on Daryl's internal struggle with Carol's 'loss'.
I disclaim as usual and hope you enjoy!
The child's cries matched its would-be father's.
They'd wailed in the rotting yard of the prison together.
Daryl and Maggie had made it to a small, run-down town, found the scraps of clothes and discarded cases of baby formula needed to keep the little bundle of hissy-fits alive for a short time.
He wondered, as they drove up and handed the small cache of supplies over to Hershel and Glenn, if anything they did would actually ensure life in the kind of world they were faced with.
But it wasn't his problem. He'd gotten the damn milk for the kid. They could fret over its (hers) fussing hunger now.
Rick had gone batshit earlier that day. Taken an axe to every shambling group of Walkers within the fences, sliced open the heads of every hobbling rogue that pressed against the outside.
For all intents and purposes, Rick had single handedly picked off every damn dead body that dared move near their compound.
And they'd let him. Keeping a close eye they'd let the man vent his frustration, his anguish, his goddamn insanity for a good two hours before Rick finally fell quiet, grew still, and allowed himself to be ushered into the cell block to rest.
To mourn.
To mourn.
And he'd cried.
Daryl listened for only a few moments to Rick's whimpers and wails, every little sound scraping deeper and deeper beneath his skin before Maggie came in with the baby in tow, shaking a bottle of formula and shushing the beginnings of another hunger-fit.
It was too much.
He'd bolted for the edges of the prison yard to wait out the rest of the day.
It was cool when darkness began to fall, spring not quite able to beat out the remnants of winter.
But it wasn't the tingling wind hitting his bare arms that sent the shiver down his spine.
He'd been staring down at the gravesites for hours, eyes fixed on a solitary cross. His feet would not budge for the longest, the damned concrete of the pathway beneath him seeming to grab hold and refuse to let go.
Go down and pay yer respects, if you got any.
And he did. Too many to count. Too many to recall. Too many.
He left the protection of the fence as the sun began to set, made his way to the cross that'd begun to blur his vision the longer he stared at it.
As he kneeled before the haphazard religious symbol he could see her name, etched in a shitty attempt at carving by who he assumed to be Glenn.
Carol
No last name. No Peletier. They didn't think of each other in terms of full names anymore, of who they were married to or who they'd 'belonged' to.
They were Lori, T-Dog, Carol.
They were each other's. Everyone's.
She was—
'Yours.'
It was the whisper that had him shuddering as suddenly as he stepped back from the almost-grave.
Not his voice, but in his head.
He was damned sure of it.
Maybe it was true, in some fucked kind of way. As he stepped backwards again, eyes darting about the field, the wind picked up and cooled his suddenly hot skin, but he did not shiver at it.
It was the whisper that carried across the silent grass that made him bite his lip and cross his arms tight.
If they all belonged to each other, then yes, she did belong to him. They were there to guide each other, protect each other. Raise each other.
She'd been his to guide. His to protect.
And now she was dead, and he didn't even have a goddamn body to bury.
"M'sorry, Carol." His own whisper sounded weak to him, and he fought to curse in front of the graves of his friends.
There he was, talking to no one. Talking to an empty grave. Talking to a cross. His gaze fell on the mounds of dirt beneath T-Dog and Lori's crosses, and he felt his lips tighten. They hadn't found her.
You hadn't looked.
"Fuck."
No, he hadn't. With the shitstorm of alarms, roving Walkers, Rick's mental break and suddenly having to keep a damn newborn alive, he hadn't—
Hadn't looked.
But she was nowhere to be found. If she was alive, she would have come out of whatever hole she'd been stuck in. If she was alive, she would have realized the place had gone quiet, the chaos over…she would have…
If she was alive, she'd be the one talking to him right now, instead of her goddamn ghost whispering in his ear.
Carol was dead. He couldn't protect her and she was fucking gone. Night fell over the field and Daryl could hear someone walking up to the fence to check on him. A quick glance identified Glenn, silent but waiting.
When the wind blew again, he heard her whisper the word that he knew would haunt him forever.
He would not fucking cry.
She wouldn't want him to.
Hefting his bow over his shoulder he turned his back on the cross and walked away.
He wouldn't say goodbye, either.
'Yours.'