Chapter Two

Daryl

The first thing I realized when I woke up was that every single fucking muscle and bone in my body was killing me. If it wasn't a sharp stabbing pain it was a strong, steady throb. But that made me realize one thing…I wasn't dead.

Before I even attempted to open my eyes, as even they hurt, I tried to remember what the hell had happened. Pieces started to come back to me. I had gotten jumped by a couple of assholes that wanted what I had. They had to be really desperate because I didn't have shit. Being on my own had started to get to me, and I let my guard drop at the wrong time. I was camping in the woods, and they came out of nowhere. Even though I was hurting like a bitch, I got out of it alive. They didn't. After making sure they wouldn't turn and come after me a second time, I took off through the backwoods that had become my home.

The problem was that with each step I took it became harder and harder to put one foot ahead of the other. They had cut me up pretty good, but a few good whacks to my head had me seeing double. So much for Carol calling me hard headed all those years. "Fuck," mumbled under my breath. I tried not to think about her or any of them at all. It hurt too much.

I forced my eyes to open just a little bit and realized I recognized absolutely nothing about where I was. "It's a shack," I thought to myself. Nothing about the rough walls and plank ceiling looked familiar at all. "How the fuck did I get here?"

My left eye wouldn't open all the way, so I figured it was swollen from the fight. My right let me see more, but I couldn't tell if I was alone here or not. I went to sit up, and a sharp stabbing pain shot through me. "Fuck!" I groaned as I fell back. That hurt really fucking bad.

"Travis, you're awake?"

I grabbed for the knife at my belt, but it was gone. I was so fucked. Well, maybe not as bad as I thought as a woman walked into my line of sight. I took a deep breath, but even that hurt badly enough for me to consider I may have broken ribs. Damn, I probably couldn't even fight off a toddler like Judith right now. Fuck again. Why did everything come back to them?

A woman crouched down near me, but far enough away that grabbing her wouldn't be easy. She was either smart or lucky. I didn't know enough yet to figure out which. When I turned my head to look up at her the sunlight coming in behind her made her look like she was glowing. If I didn't know better, I would have thought I was dead, and she was an angel looking down at me.

"How are you doing?" she asked with a slight smile.

I put my hand up to block the sun. "Where am I? Who the hell are you?" I growled at her. I was never known for my manners. Being raised by an asshole of a man who was my supposedly my father did that to a guy. Plus, I didn't give a shit.

"Where we are, I really have no idea. This is a rundown shack in the middle of the forest that I came across by accident. I found you here and did the best I could to patch you up, Travis."

Travis? I looked at her with my one good eye and realized she was much prettier than I thought. Her smile was soft and welcoming. She made me want to relax my guard with that smile, but I couldn't. My life was at stake. I had never seen hair as long as she had. It was pure black and even though it was in a ponytail that hung over her shoulder, and with her squatting near me it almost hit the floor. I had a strange desire to run my fingers through it. Who she was, I had no idea. But she affected me like no other had. I knew I had to stop that immediately. I was a loner, who did better alone. People…women had no place in my life anymore. None. Not even Angels.

I gave her one of my patented stares that usually had people backing away from me pretty damn quick, but she didn't budge. "Who the fuck is Travis?"

"You are," she apologized. "I didn't know your name, so I gave you one."

"Travis?" I said rolling my eyes. What a lame ass name. I took a deep breath and was rewarded with another shooting pain on my right side. Yep, I broke some ribs. I tried not to groan, but why the fuck did everything have to hurt? Closing my eyes, make that eye since the left was practically closed, to begin with, I rode out the pain flowing through me. I had figured out that if she wanted to hurt me, I'd be dead already so closing my eyes wouldn't kill me. But this damn pain just may.

"So?" she asked.

"So what?" I growled back. I knew I was being an ass, but frankly, I didn't give a damn.

"What is your name? If you don't want me to call you Travis, I need a name."

"Daryl," I muttered. This time when I opened my eye I saw her much clearer.

"Wish we met under better circumstances, but I'm Jessie."

The name suited her. Don't know why but it just did. Suddenly, I felt too vulnerable lying on the floor this way. It wasn't coming from her, but just from years of always having to be alert. Flat on my back, without any weapons, ain't my idea of being safe. I had to get up. "Can you help me sit up? Then tell me what you know."

Her face got serious and took on an entirely different look. "I will, but know that if you try anything, I'll slit your throat. Got it?"

I didn't doubt that for a second. It was the only way to survive these days. I had taken more lives than I could count. Never would've done that before all this shit went down. Never thought I could, but when it's the only way to survive, I don't have any choice.

"Listen, I can't even sit up on my fucking own. I ain't gonna try nuthin'. I just don't want to be laying down no more. Okay?" She had every right to say that to me. She don't know me at all. But if she did, she'd know I don't hurt women. If one was trying to kill me is a 'nuther story, but I ain't gonna take advantage of her. Not my style.

Her eyes bore into mine for a long time. It was like she was trying to make up her mind about me. Then finally I saw her face relax a bit and she moved closer. "Alright, but let me do most of the work. I don't want you ripping those stitches."

Wait. What did she say? "Stitches? Where?" I moved the sheet that was covering me and saw I was bare-chested. First, my eyes hit the scars that were always there and then traveled past to the bloodstained bandage. Shit, I was worse off than I thought.

I felt her hand rest on my arm, and our eyes immediately met again. God, she had fuckin' incredible eyes. They were almost a purple, and I had never seen anything like them before.

"Hold up," she said. "Let's change the bandage first, and then we can get you up. Okay?"

I nodded my head. Jessie gave my arm a squeeze before she stood up and headed somewhere to get the supplies. I wondered where she got the medical stuff from in the first place. When you lived on the run, most people carried only the bare essentials like food, water, and weapons. Wait, weapons? Where was my crossbow?

"Hey, where'd ya put my crossbow?"

"What crossbow?" Jessie asked as she came back to my side with an old box. "You didn't have a crossbow with you when I found you."

"Fuck! You sure?" I practically shouted at her. That crossbow was as much a part of me as my arm was. It was me. I had lost it too many times as it was. I had nothing else to defend myself with besides my knives. I needed my crossbow to survive.

Jessie put her hand on my shoulder to keep me down. "Daryl, take it easy. Let me change the bandage and then help you up. After that, we can figure out where it may be. Okay? I'm trying to help you, but you sure aren't making it easy?"

I hated when people were right, and my stubbornness got in the way. "Git to it." But instead of touching the bandage, she just raised her eyebrows at me and sat back on her heels staring at me. "Well, what you waitin' for?" Typical pain in the ass woman.

Oh fuck, she wasn't waiting for that was she? I'm in fuckin' pain and in a really bad mood and can't she give me a goddamn break? I am not in the mood for this bullshit. My stare was matching hers second for second. I don't give in. I don't break. Ask Negan. Who are you…Daryl. Always Daryl.

Then for some unknown reason, I closed my eyes. I'll blame it on the constant throbbing in my head, but I was still trying to understand how this strange woman found me and stitched up the slice from the knife? Damn, I was one lucky son of a bitch.

When I met her eyes again, I didn't apologize but instead gave in to what she was waiting for. "Please…git with it."

I saw the smirk appear on her face. She didn't say anything as she took the bandage off, but I saw that smirk. I liked that she stood up to me in a silent protest. Respect the shit outta that.

I didn't say a word as Jessie ripped the last of the tape of me and took half the hair on my body with it. I looked down at the cut and remembered when that asshole sliced me. He got what was coming to him, by an even bigger slice across his throat. It was three on one, but I was the only one to make it out alive. "Still bleeding," I said to Jessie. "But nice stitch work." That earned me a smile.

What's another scar? My body was full of them, but I just wasn't used to other people seeing them. My old man had fucked up my back and chest pretty good. I had slash-like scars all over me. I swear that belt he used hurt worse as I got older. When Merle ran off, I was the only target left for his drunken anger. Anything would set him off from missing food in the fridge to the damn weather. I hid from him as much as I could, but sometimes he'd catch me off guard, and I'd end up missing school for a couple of days. As soon as I was old enough, I hightailed it outta there and never looked back. When the bastard died, me and Merle got shit faced drunk celebrating.

I could never forget it. I lived with the reminders of my fucked up childhood my whole life. If seeing the scars every day didn't do it, my head never lets me forget. Even now, with me being somewhere in my forties…I lost count since the world went to shit, I still heard his voice calling me a loser, a piece of shit that was never going to amount to anything, and any number of insults he could fire out of his drunk ass mouth. Hearing that day after day messes with a kid's head. Big time. Yeah, I was still fucked up from it.

I felt a tug on my skin and turned my attention back to Jessie. I saw the wound was barely seeping now and knew it would close soon. She was rubbing some sort of ointment on it, but as far there wasn't any sign of infection from what I could see. "Where'd you get the medical supplies from?"

"Believe it or not, here in the shack. I found an old trunk was an unexpected gold mine."

"Like what?" She had my curiosity way up, but I could tell that she was trying to figure out what to say to me. She said too much and now regretted it. She had found something good…something important, and I needed to know what it was. But when she got up and didn't say anything, I pushed her for more. "What did you find? C'mon, you started this. Guns? Ammo? I bet that's what it was."

I watched her face as she kneeled next to me with a wet rag. When she wouldn't meet my eyes, I knew I was right. I could also see that she was kicking herself for saying anything. A gun meant survival, and that meant living another day or two. Maybe more.

Jessie didn't say nuthin' as she wiped the blood off my skin. I watched her apply a bandage to my side with steady, sure hands. She had definitely done this before. Finally, she looked at me with those damn eyes of hers. I felt the corner of my mouth lift up a bit. Damn, I felt like shit, but she almost had me smiling.

"Alright. I found two handguns and a couple boxes of ammo," she admitted. "Whoever lived here left in a hurry and never came back. There's canned food in the kitchen and clothes and linens in the trunk over against the wall. That's where I found the guns and a makeshift first aid kit. There was a thick layer of dust on everywhere, but while I was waiting for you to wake up, I wiped everything down. There's a water pump in the kitchen that still works."

"The guy that built this wanted to be far away from people. This is in the middle of nowhere." This is the exact type of place that I would want. "Help me sit up, would ya?"

"Sure," Jessie said. "Let me push you up from behind."

"I ain't no baby," I muttered.

"Humor me. I don't want you to rip those stitches. It's not something that I enjoy doing."

Fine. I'd let her baby me. It may be an insult to my manhood, but I didn't want her having to stitch me up again. I was glad I was passed out the first time.

I got up on my elbows, and Jessie snuck in behind me. She got me to a sitting position without too much pain. My head was spinning so I sat there a few minutes waiting for it to clear. Now, I wanted to stand. Of course, Jessie thought I was pushing it, but a few moments later I was standing. Well, make that swaying as my head spun like a motherfuckin' top. That's when she quickly pushed me towards the only bed in the room, and I sat down. Those fuckers had given me a concussion that was screwing with me. I can't fight if I can't stay conscious or if I see two of everything. Cause right now there were two Jessie's staring at me.

"Fuck," I mumbled under my breath, but apparently it was loud enough for her to hear.

"What's wrong? Are you in pain?"

I was, my whole body hurt like hell, but it was my head that had me worried. "Yeah, but my head is spinning, so I'm dizzy as shit. Plus, now…you got a twin sister next to ya."

"Oh hell. It's bad enough with one of me, believe me, you don't want two."

I wanted to laugh at her comment, but instead, I closed my eyes to try to stop the spinning. Maybe standing up was a bit too much, but I had to get off the floor. I vaguely heard rustling going on in the room as I tried to get my bearing, but that wasn't happening. "Gotta lie down," I told her.

"Wait! I have an idea." I heard her doing something next to me, but I kept my eyes closed. "Okay, I put some blankets down behind you so that you won't be lying flat. I think it's better that you are raised up a bit." Whatever she thought was fine with me, all I knew was that I needed to lie down and fast. I felt Jessie's hand on me as I eased myself down onto the bed. Once I was lying down, I felt the bed dip next to me. She must have sat down.

After a few minutes, I felt the spinning slow down, and I opened my good eye. "Thanks," I whispered as I started to fall asleep. I was wide awake one minute and exhausted the next. I knew my body needed to heal and as long Jessie was here I was okay to sleep. I couldn't believe I was trusting a total stranger with my life. But I was, and I did.

The last thing I remember as I fell asleep was her saying, "I got your back, Daryl." I was just glad that someone did. I was tired of doing it alone.