Sum: Daryl worries for his daughter when she comes home covered in Walker blood. Part of my TWD Rose 'verse.

An: For once my version of Daryl does not use the F-bomb...I think...

I own nothing of the Walking Dead.

Huntress

"Why are you covered in Geek blood?" He asked her when she returned, this had been her first hunt he'd allowed her to go out alone on. Even though he knew she could take care of herself but it hadn't stopped him from pacing and worrying for her. At 16 she had began to easily surpass him with her hunting skills. Slight in frame even now she could move silently through the woods in a way that made him jealous.

She shrugged "Met a couple out huntin' no big deal Daddy."

Rose still adorned her hair with feathers and Cherokee Roses, letting it grow long enough that when she braided it the leather string she used to bind the end would smack her mid-back as she walked.

Unlike the girls that lived in the town who wore dresses and fawned over the plastic beads of the past she would find shells in the creek or along the lake shore to string and trade for things more useful to surviving in town. She was his little girl, preferring to wear the leather Capri and doe skin boots made from from the deer he caught and tanned, stitched together by Callan a friend from town.

"Define a 'couple' 'bud." He asked crossing his arms

She set down her kills on the stump he had deigned to clean animals on. She had on her string a few squirrel, a rabbit, and what looked like a pheasant.

She crossed her arms, looking so much like her mother he almost choked on his breath.

"Six." Her eyes were defiantly daring him to say anything about it, and being the man he was he took it on.

"Six? Dammit Rose what did I tell you?"
"They came all at once, climbed a tree and shot them all in the head. I just didn't the last one til it was on top of me, he got my knife between his eyes." She rolled her eyes, brushing it off.

He blanched, his daughter alone in the woods surrounded by walkers it was too close to the situation almost twenty years ago when her sister had ran off into the woods. Coming out of that fucking barn with a bite on her tiny shoulder.

Daryl must have been quiet for a long time, lost in memories for she was shaking his arm trying to get his attention.

"Daddy, Daddy!"

"Wha? Sorry 'bud." he shook his head, letting the memories go.

Rose's blue eyes were wide, sad as she searched his face. Vaguely he wondered if she saw the same man her mother had with those same blue eyes years ago.

"You don't need to worry Daddy, I came back." she tried to sooth him.

It didn't work "Hell I knew it was a bad idea to let you go alone!"

He started to fume and pace ranting on and on about how he should have been there. Rose just stood watching him quietly as his fuming grew.

"It's like you want to follow your sisters..."

She cut him off with a ommpf as she latched her arms around his middle and held on tight, not allowing him to flinch away.

"I'm sorry Dad, but I promised that I would never get bitten." She mumbled into his shirt "I promised Ma that I would never leave you alone."

He was never the one to accept hugs from people, but she and her Ma had been the only people he had even accepted touch from. But now he needed that touch, to cement that she was safe and alive and here.

He grunted "I promised her that I would never let anything bad happen to you."

"You taught me never to be afraid, taught me to take care of myself." She smiled into his shirt "And that's what I did, took care of myself."

He tightened his hold on her, she was so young and small for her age. She was nothing like the mess his young self was, she had grown up loved and cared for. She never had been lost and forgotten out in the woods, beat on until she couldn't see anymore.

It was times like this he wished Carol would appear and sooth things over, calm him. Moments he would remember it has been 12 years since he last saw her, last teased, last saw her face. But one didn't live life thinking of others last moments it was best to look and the here and now, the future.

"Ya, know I don't think I've seen a group of walkers get over 3 or four in years." he said as he released her.

She grinned "Maybe there's less of them now since it's been years since this mess started."

"Maybe, come on let's skin those and maybe later we can go to Callan's for some cider." He kept an arm over her shoulders, grinning as he face lit up in glee. She loved visiting the Irish woman and like it when she would give her apple cider to take home with her after a visit to town.

"Alright."

Fin.

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