It was so hard to concentrate, with her entire body aching with dehydration and exhaustion. She had no clear idea of how long she had been in here. Dimly, as if they were someone else's memories, she recalled desperately yanking the door open to get it between herself and the walker that she hadn't quite managed to kill with her knife before losing it, stuck in the huge male walker's throat. The … thing … hadn't known to pull the door open again after it had closed behind her, and its mindlessness was what had saved her so far.
However, the longer she was in here the more deadly a trap her sanctuary was becoming. She had heard them roaming through the hallway beyond the heavy door, too many to sneak through unnoticed, impossible to fight through and put down without any weapon whatsoever, and she didn't want T-Dog's sacrifice to be in vain while there was still any chance of getting out of here alive.
And so she had waited for the noise outside to die down. For the shuffling of dragging feet to end. For the growling to fade away into the distance. Waiting for her chance to open the door again, slip out and find her way back to the inhabited cell blocks, despite the dark, despite the dangers lurking around every corner down here.
But by the time it had been silent enough, hours, maybe days later - she had lost track of time completely, drifting in and out of consciousness with hunger and thirst, and with the all-consuming darkness there was no way of keeping track of it anyway -, she had been too weak to even open the door. All she had been able to do was push it slightly open, but somehow, the hinges wouldn't allow her to open it all the way and it had fallen back toward her again.
And then, again an indeterminate time later, she had heard a heavy thud right outside the door and when she had next tried to push it open, it had given less than an inch before it had encountered an obstacle.
The irony of it was almost too much. The walkers hadn't managed to get her directly, so one of them just plunked down outside her door after getting taken down, blocking it, and now she was going to starve to death in here. She would simply die of thirst. Nobody would ever find her.
Daryl would never know what had become of her.
Her head seemed to reel, and she yearned for even one sip of water. It needn't even be cool. Even warm, stale, stinking water would do her just fine - one single sip of it would be pure bliss. But the cell she was in was in isolation, and it didn't have a sink and faucet like the other cells, those they were living in upstairs.
No water in here.
Not even a single sip.
She pushed against the door, but it hit the walker and closed again.
Slowly, as if through cotton wool, she became aware of voices just outside the heavy door she was hidden behind.
A male voice, one she wasn't too familiar with yet. The surviving inmate. „Check it over. Must've missed it last night."
With another supreme effort, she pushed against the door, only to have it clang shut once more.
After a brief pause, Daryl's voice: „ It's probably just one or two o' them. Don't look like they got much of a fight." Next, two very light taps against her door.
Focusing on them through the thirst and her headache and her aching muscles and the parched feeling in her mouth and raw throat, she tried to form a coherent thought.
Daryl. Outside her door.
Daryl.
OUTSIDE HER DOOR. TAPPING AGAINST IT. TALKING ABOUT ACTUALLY OPENING HER DOOR.
Her mind was too slow. She couldn't think. The moment passed.
She heard him talking, and she heard three sets of footsteps, receding slowly.
Open. Closed. Her whole body aching with the exertion of this tiny movement.
Daryl's voice again, a little farther off. „They ain't goin' nowhere. Take care of 'em on the way back." A brief whistle, followed by a few quicker footsteps. One person catching up to the one walking point.
Who was out there with him?
Open. Closed.
„My mom, she liked her wine. She liked to smoke in bed. Virginia Slims. Was playin' out with kids in the neighborhood. I could do that, with Merle gone."
Merle. He was talking about his childhood. She couldn't remember him ever doing that before. She loved listening to his voice, even through the door. The screaming and growling and scuffling of walkers wouldn't be the last things she was going to hear. She could actually feel her eyes tearing up, without any idea of where she was getting enough moisture for tears.
His voice would be the last thing she heard.
Open. Closed.
„They had bikes. I didn't. We heard sirens gettin' louder. They jumped on their bikes. I ran after, ya know, hopin' to see somethin' worth seein'. Ran after 'em, but I couldn't keep up."
His voice was completely matter of fact. There was no self pity in it whatsoever. He was recounting facts, nothing more.
Open. Closed. So tired.
„Ran around the corner and saw my friends lookin' at me - hell, I saw everybody lookin' at me. Firetrucks everywhere, people from the neighborhood. It was my house they were there for."
Slowly, the words started penetrating the fog she was drifting in. His house had burned? And he had been forced to watch, with the whole neighborhood looking on?
Open. Closed.
A thought started surfacing in her mind, agonizingly slow to materialize. Once it had, it seemed so logical, but getting there was so difficult. Her mind seemed to be wading through molasses, it was so sluggish.
Daryl was out there. In the hallway just outside the door of the cell she was lying in. Three people were looking for her, or maybe for any remaining walkers to put down.
All she had to do was call out to get their attention and they would find her.
Get her out of here.
Save her.
But she had to call out.
She fought to pry her lips apart, force her tongue down from where it was stuck to her palate. Her mouth was so dry it hurt. When she managed to part her lips ever so slightly, sucking in air, she smelled how horrible the taste in her mouth had become. She felt the crusts of dried spittle in the corners of her mouth, and they were drying even now into smaller, harder shards, and the contracting crusts were hurting her skin, but she was too weak to lift one hand and swipe them away. Just opening her mouth ever so slightly made her lips crack. She could taste the salt of her own thick blood when her sandpaper tongue snaked out to touch her lips.
Just like she was too weak to rub away the crusts in the corners of her eyes - dried tears? Had she cried since she had fled in here, from the walker stumbling after her with her knife stuck in its throat? Or had she imagined that? Stabbing a walker?
Open. Closed.
Her lips came fully apart and her tongue was all but ripped from her palate, and everything hurt. She didn't have any spittle to wet her lips or her tongue. She felt like a sponge in the desert. Death Valley. The Sahara. And her whole body was as heavy as lead.
But that would be over if she just managed to call out.
She might manage that, now that she could open her mouth.
So she opened it again, and tried to call out his name.
No sound came.
Her throat was too dry to produce a sound, and her body was too weak to force enough air through her voice box.
Her mouth was open in a parody of a scream, her face a rictus of fear, pain, agony, but no sound emerged.
Open. Closed. Tired unto death.
Daryl's voice, heard as if through dense fog.
„That was my mom in bed, burned down to nothin'. That was the hard part, you know. She was just gone."
Despite her own desperate situation, her heart still ached for him. He had been forced to watch his mother burn down to nothing in their house, unable to help. And still his voice was completely devoid of emotion. He wasn't allowing himself to feel anything over this terrible loss.
Open. Closed.
„Erased. Nothin' left of her. People said it was better that way. I don't know. Just made it seem like it wasn't real, you know?"
Open. Closed.
Carl's voice, even farther away. „Shot my mom. She was out. Hadn't turned yet. I ended it. It was real." Then, after another pause: „I'm sorry bout your mom."
Although she heard the words, their meaning didn't register. She closed her eyes. Her dry tongue hurt so terribly, now that it had come unstuck, and all of a sudden she just wished for it to be over.
Open. Closed. Down to the last shreds of her strength.
Daryl, almost out of earshot now. „'m sorry 'bout yours."
One last time.
Open. Closed.
She drifted out.
.-.
Very briefly, she woke up again after the sound of four gunshots echoing through the hallways of the Tombs. They weren't followed by screams or shouting or running footsteps, and she could only hope that whatever they had shot at hadn't gotten him.
She forced her eyes open in an effort to see if her door was open now, but the darkness remained as stygian as it had been before. Her hand moved across the dirty, dusty floor as if of its own volition.
Open. Closed.
The fog closed around her again.
.-.
A more or less regular noise brought her around once more. A metallic clang, as if someone was hitting the walls or the floor outside her cell with a crowbar or a knife.
And heavy breathing.
And the occasional grunt of frustration, puncutating the metallic clangs.
Someone was out there.
Very dimly, as if from another life, she recalled Daryl saying that he would take out the supposed walkers behind her door on the way back.
This had to be him, on the way back, as he'd announced. This was her very last chance. If he decided to not open this door, to leave what he believed to be walkers in here to their fate, let them rot in here for eternity, she would indeed rot in here - after dying and turning.
If there was one thing that she couldn't bear, it was the thought of turning into a walker and staying alive in here literally forever.
She reached out with her last reserves.
Open. Closed.
A loud noise against her door, as if from a kick. Fast, nervous footsteps, to the right, to the left, and she could imagine him pacing nervously out there in the hallway. A grunt, as if from exertion, the slapping noise of a dead body hitting the ground, and she remembered the walker that had been blocking her door and now had to be blocking him as well - but he, of course, had no trouble at all getting it away from there. He hadn't been cooped up in here without food and water for an eternity.
And then her door was yanked open violently and suddenly he was there, leaning in and down toward her, his image blurred with the tears gathering in her papery eyes. She felt his calloused fingers touching her chin, tilting her face up to look at her and make sure she was alive, she hadn't turned. Her eyelids were heavy as lead, but she managed to keep them open long enough to look back at him, and see the relief in his eyes at finding her still alive.
She let go, and the swirling darkness took her.
.-.
She came around to the sensation of a cool, wet cloth against her lips and cheeks and forehead. Then she heard the sound of the cloth being submerged in water, then wrung out so it wouldn't be soaking wet. Next, blissfully, just a tiny bit of it was used to gently clean the corners of her mouth and her eyes of the crusts that had formed there and hurt her so badly when she had been sitting in that cell in isolation.
Very slowly, she cracked open her eyelids, but the light stabbing into her eyes after the prolonged darkness down there was too much. They started watering and she quickly closed them again. To her surprise he started speaking almost immediately, his voice gruff, carefully guarded so as to not give away his emotions.
„Closed the curtain, but 's probably still too light in here for ya", he grumbled softly from her right, still cleaning and cooling her face with the wet cloth. Now he was wiping her hair out of her face with it, and cooling her skin behind her ears and down her neck. She had never believed he'd be able to touch anything this gently.
„It's been two days since the attack, dunno how long it's been since ya last drank anything. I've got water here, and I'll give it to ya to sip, but you gotta take it slowly, okay?" The concern in his voice was heartbreaking. She realized that she had been very close to death, but to hear in his voice how much it had affected him … She couldn't allow herself to got there - it would only mean opening herself up to more heartache. She couldn't allow herself to think of him in that way, when surely Daryl was unable to think of anyone like that. She couldn't allow her unvoiced wishes to hurt her this deeply - or him.
The sound of water being poured into a glass made her aware again of how badly her mouth hurt, of her tounge that felt like sandpaper, of her eyes that felt shriveled and dry like raisins. And then she felt the cool curve of the glass against her lower lip, the pressure light to keep her lips from cracking even worse, and the unseen hand holding it was tilting it so the cool liquid slowly came up against her parched lips. Greedily she opened her mouth and a tiny sip of water flowed in even as the glass was being lowered again.
„Take it slowly", he advised her, still sounding gruff, and made sure that she follow his advice by removing the glass. Gasping, she lifted one hand to catch his arm and keep him from taking the water away from her, but he wasn't having any of it. „Naw", he mumbled, and with one hand against his chest now she could feel him squirming to keep the glass out of her reach. „Wouldn't want you to vomit from drinkin' too fast. Ya need to keep it down, ya can't lose any more."
He went back to wiping her face with the wet cloth again, gently, slowly, and then continued with her arms, using a different, coarser cloth. She realized that he was cleaning her and remembered the frenzy of the few minutes between fleeing into the Tombs with T-Dog and closing that heavy door behind herself. She had stabbed at least half a dozen walkers, and she was sure that T had done some close-quarters stabbing as well. Surely her face, arms and hands were covered in blood and gore, all of it dry now and stuck to her skin.
And he was cleaning her.
Suddenly, every single touch of his hand to her skin electrified her. Her heartbeat, sluggish until now, picked up and she started feeling lightheaded. „Please", she gasped, „just a moment … Please … I can't …"
He withdrew at once, but didn't move away. Nor did he speak, not even to ask what was wrong. He just waited.
As soon as he was no longer touching her, her heart slowed down again, even as she regretted having to push him back. She hadn't felt in a long time what she felt as he was touching her, for whatever innocent purpose, and the result was a complete emotional overload. A sob escaped her as her chest constricted.
Completely failing to understand her - and who could blame him, with no clues whatsoever? - he tried to soothe her with words, still keeping his hands away from her, respecting her wish even though she wanted nothing so much as being touched by him again.
Once she had calmed down again she asked for more water and he helped her take two more sips. After placing the glass on the nightstand he asked if she would be okay with him cleaning her some more, and she managed a nod. After a few moments filled with the sounds of him soaking and wringing out the cloth he was going to use she noticed that he had to be leaning over her now - he was cleaning her left arm and hand.
Slowly, prepared to close them again at once, she opened her eyes again, and while the sting of the light was still fierce and they started tearing up once more, it wasn't nearly as bad as the first time. She watched in awe as Daryl concentrated on cleaning her left hand, holding it in his and wiping it down with his wet cloth.
He looked tired, with dark circles under his eyes and a pale, drawn face. Her family had probably been busy all through the night, finding walkers and carrying them out and stacking them up to burn once the sun was up - as well as digging graves for their own. Knowing him, he had helped with all of it, and it showed.
After gently cleaning the skin between her fingers he placed her hand on the thin covers again and looked up at her face, one corner of his mouth quirking upward as he met her eyes. „You up for some food? Brought some crackers", he offered.
She nodded eagerly, and before she knew it, he was feeding her crumbling pieces of salt crackers, chased down with small, slow sips of water, and the crackers and water tasted more delicious than any three course meal she had ever had in her life. They waited for a bit after she had finished four crackers to make sure that she would keep everything down, and then, to her surprise, he offered to brush her teeth.
He was very careful with the toothbrush, making sure to not injure her gums by pressing down too hard, and yet the taste of the toothpaste chasing out the foul taste and smell from earlier was pure bliss. When he was halfway done she offered to take over from him for doing the insides of her teeth and he handed her the toothbrush and sat back, watching.
As she was still very thirsty it was all she could do to not swallow the water she'd used to rinse out her mouth, but in the end she spat it into the cup he was holding for her and was rewarded with a few more sips of water and another cracker before he rose from the chair next to her, gathering his bowl of bloodied water with the bloodstained cloth swimming in it and emptying the toothbrushing water into it.
„Get some rest now", he mumbled, turning toward the cell door. „Sleep for a bit, then I'll feed ya again - and then I'll tell the others that you're back again." It was just like him to phrase it that way, without claiming any credit for himself, and her heart swelled with emotion. He was still so obviously concerned for her that she nodded immediately. She heard him leaving, but by the time his heavy boots clomped up the stairs again she was already drifting off, sufficiently exhausted by what little she had done to fall asleep again within minutes.
.-.
She woke from her nap feeling refreshed and stronger than before. Her tongue was no longer scraping the skin off the inside of her mouth and she actually managed to work up some spit to swallow and soothe her throat. Opening her eyes no longer resulted in an immediate crying fit as they had adjusted to the light in her cell.
And opening her eyes had the added benefit of giving her Daryl Dixon fast asleep on the chair next to her cot.
She cleared her throat noisily, but felt bad at once when he jerked up to look at her with bleary eyes. „Crackers? Water?" he asked and was rewarded with a bright smile as she nodded at him, not yet trusting herself to speak. So he fed her bits of cracker and sips of water once more until she'd had enough and actually felt full - and her mind turned to other things.
„How is everyone?" she asked in a strained, cracking voice, and his face fell. In a tiny, hesitant voice she added: „Not everyone has made it, I know that. I saw T-Dog getting bit."
He flinched as if from a physical blow and reached into his back pocket, pulling out the scarf she had worn on her head on the day of the attack. She stared at him, her surprise at him carrying this around with him rendering her speechless. She could still remember losing it right after they had run in through the heavy steel door leading into the yard, which was probably where he'd found it, next to T-Dog's body. Wordlessly, he placed the scarf on top of her covers, then rose slowly, a curious mixture of sadness and joy on his face.
„Most of us made it", he mumbled as he turned away. „I'll go get everyone for ya - they'll be happy to see you."
Just before he was out the door she found her voice again. „Daryl?"
He turned to look back at her, that strange expression still on his face, and she unconsciously started bracing for bad news.
„Thank you for finding me."
His eyes briefly found hers and he gave her that small, almost unnoticeable nod which was the closest he came to acknowledging praise, and a slight blush crept into his cheeks. Then he looked down at the floor again, uncomfortable as always at being thanked. „Yeah", he mumbled. „Jus' … Don't get lost again, okay?"