[A/N] Hello dear readers, thank you for checking out the second part. Warning: smut. Hope you enjoy!
You roll the wooden soldier between your finger and your thumb, looking out onto the woods just outside of Alexandria. You know every ridge, every crease by now, its familiarity comforting you. You can't even consciously remember taking it out of its trusted place in your pocket. You remember more times putting it back than taking it out.
You feel so ridiculous. You are staring at the tree line, expecting the rustling leaves to reveal him, approaching the gates of Alexandria with his arms raised in surrender. Every breeze blowing through the leaves grabs your attention, but he never appears.
You sigh, grabbing the wooden soldier into your palm. You know you need to do something about this. You need assurance that he is alright. Your campfire heart-to-heart and events of that day must have hit you harder than you had initially thought. In quiet moments, you often find yourself thinking back to that day with frustration, but also with intrigue.
Most importantly: You are worried about him. He went back to a place where they were obviously in danger.
You pocket the soldier and take your leave from the watch tower. Your guard duty was almost over anyways. It's not like another one of those huge hordes will sweep through again anytime soon.
You hadn't been there. You, Daryl, Abe and Sasha had been busy getting threatened by a bunch of wannabe bikers, wanting to take your shit for 'Negan'. They pronounced the name like you should have been really scared of him, like you should have known him. The guy better be the cure to the apocalypse for all this intimidation.
But you heard later on that everyone had stepped up to protect Alexandria. Even father Gabriel, which had surprised you and your brother. You had thought the guy was a hypocrite prick who needed to take responsibility in this new world. And he finally did.
You know what you need to do. You are going to where it all began.
Try and get some closure. Or perpetuate the illusion that you are going to see him again. Or both.
You had gotten a car from Rick by feeding him some bullshit about needing specific feminine products and having seen an old pharmacy en route to the 20, when you were leading the horde away from Alexandria. You felt a bit guilty lying to Rick, seeing as you, him, Daryl and Carol were such a close-knit circle. You were the ones who discussed the hard problems nobody wanted to think about, in the darkness of the silent nights.
You felt even guiltier for lying to your brother. You could notice he found it a bit odd when you said you had to go on a run for "vaginal shit neither of us wants to talk about, brother." But he had just nodded, grumbling a "whatever, Jill."
Now that you are driving here, you feel more okay with the lies. You still feel bad, but you need to do this. You have to get some type of closure, or keep going insane with worry. Those are your options.
You park your car some distance from the place where you met, to avoid getting shot at by the guys from that outpost again. That was not fucking fun. Your knee still hurts from that assault.
But you'd rather walk than get attacked again. Sore legs, a throbbing knee and aching feet are still better than bullet holes.
At this point, you wonder why you even go through all this trouble to see a guy who captured you, tied you up and intimidated you. But you have seen a vulnerability in him that you can't unsee. It's almost like he captured that vulnerability in that damn wooden soldier he gave you, and that's why it clings to you like a disease.
What will you even do when you actually run into him?
You run a cold hand over your face.
You have no idea. You will just have to wait and see. At least the Dixon hands-on approach feels better than to spend your time wishing and waiting.
You walk for an hour, carefully crossing the road where you and Daryl had gone into the woods to shake off your assailants. Looking around feverishly, paranoia creeping into you.
You don't want to be found dead in this ditch. You really start to wonder why you would even put yourself in this kind of danger for a guy you barely know.
But as soon as you see the charred corpses, you know you've made the right choice. Which is really weird, to feel comfort at charred corpses. Get your shit together, Jill.
You walk toward where you think the graves are. You think that is your best option, or at least your best starting place.
Except everything fucking looks alike. After half an hour of walking through this part of the woods, you are pretty sure you have passed the same scorched walker without legs and the particularly throaty gurgle at least three times. But you and your stubborn Dixon spirit... You would never admit to yourself that you are lost.
After the fifth time of passing Burned Billy (you named him to distinguish him from the other countless burned bodies), you finally don't run into him anymore and the trees you pass seem to be have a different burn pattern than the trees you had been passing. So that's a good sign, right...?
As you approach what seems to be a small clearing, your footsteps sounding softly in the dry, crispy leaves, you suddenly hear a heavier footfall behind you. But before you have the time to turn around, a hand is on your mouth to silence your screams and an arm around your waist, pulling you backwards.
You thrash about, violently trying to wriggle yourself from this persons grip, your loud screams muffled by a hand pressed tightly onto your mouth. Painful tears form in your eyes for not being able to breathe. Instead of screaming, you have to focus on getting air in your lungs through your nose.
You are pushed down into an overgrown bush, still fully covered in dry, gray-looking leaves. You dig your nails into the earth, trying to scramble the fuck away from your attacker, every nerve in your body burning to get you away.
"Get away from me, you assh-"
Rough hands with thin fingers press down on your shoulders as they look you in the eye.
Dwight.
"Do you have any idea how fucking dangerous this is?" He says pressingly, raising his eyebrows at you.
The breath hitches in your throat. You found him.
"What the hell, blondie?!"
Then you notice something so earth-shatteringly sad, you think you can actually feel your heart break.
"What... what happened?" you whisper, and before you can stop yourself, you touch his burned cheek ever so softly with your fingertips.
He doesn't flinch away, he just looks at you timidly. His eyes shining with something you can't quite place. Suddenly flustered with your own boldness to touch his cheek like that, you quickly move away, clearing your throat.
"Negan taught me a lesson for trying to leave."
Your heart grows heavy, your eyes glistening with sadness.
"I'm sorry," you say, your voice small. What else is there to say? He is mutilated.
You've heard the name Negan before, from those rude bikers. So that was who they were so scared of last time. With good reason, obviously...
Maybe those bikers were right. Maybe we should have known his name.
You ask, "Did he do the same to Sherry?" Last time around, you didn't get the idea she liked you much. Still, you wouldn't wish this on her.
Dwight shakes his head. "She," he sighs, pushing his dirty blond hair behind his ears, "she left me."
You didn't even get the vibe they were together last time. Or at least not that together.
"Why?" You ask, your forehead creasing into a frown. You don't know whether you are frowning because she left him or because they were together in the first place.
"Because she couldn't forgive me. Not for Tina's death. No-," he stops himself, releasing his breath. He looks anywhere but at you.
"What is it, Dwight?" You ask tentatively.
"She blamed you. I didn't. She couldn't forgive me for standing up for you," he says softly, finally looking at you, his lips pressed into a thin line.
You don't know what to say. You keep opening and closing your mouth, but nothing comes out.
"Where is your brother?" He finally asks you.
"He doesn't know I'm here."
"Why are you even here? Are you trying to get yourself killed?" He asks with disbelief. He continues, "If you had walked into that clearing, you would have been shot twenty times over. It's crawling with Negan's people here right now."
"You are Negan's people and I'm not dead yet."
"Yeah, because I don't want you dead. But all these fuckers do. And they'll probably take something from you," he says, adding under his breath, "in any way, shape or form."
You stomach turns.
"Are all Negan's people like this? Is that why you wanted to escape?"
"No. We're here to gather some stuff from the outpost. He keeps the real deranged cases at the outposts, doesn't want them in the main compound where the women and children are."
"So people at the main compound are mostly normal?"
"Mostly." He adds, "They are not the problem. Negan's rules are."
"Why the hell did you go back?" You say bemusedly.
"Without Tina, we had no reason to run anymore."
"But without Sherry, do you still have a reason to stay?"
He sits in front of you with an unreadable expression on his face, his eyes flickering between a dry leaf and your face.
His expression grows soft and meaningful as his eyes start flickering over your face.
Suddenly he clears his throat. "You- you want a peach?"
Your face scrunches up in confusion before you hum. "Sure."
He takes out some canned peaches, opening and draining them of the juice, shaking the can a bit. He takes a peach between his fingers, being careful for it not to slip. But instead of handing you the slice of peach, his hand stills in front of your face. You look at him with surprise, but his face holds no humor, only thoughtfulness.
You close the distance between your mouth and the peach, biting into it, letting its sweetness envelop your mouth.
A trail of juice trickles down your chin. You hand moves toward it to wipe it away, but he quickly takes your hand and stills it. You swallow hard, the peach moving down your throat uncomfortably slowly.
He slowly moves his face toward yours, his lips touching your chin. Small and soft kisses clean up the peach juice in a steady trail upward.
His lips hover over your mouth. As you hold his gaze, you see his uncertainty steadily dissipating.
His lips crash onto yours, heavy with need.
You move your lips with his, slowly and unsurely at first, then with that same need. You moan into the kiss, moving your hands through his hair, which is surprisingly soft. It creates a stark contrast against the rough, burned skin on the left side of his scalp.
The smell of firewood envelops your senses, though a smoky fire is nowhere near.
His hands come down on your waist, kneading your hips hard with rough hands. They secretly slip under your shirt as you tangle your hands into his hair, pulling him as closer. You shiver as he draws little circles on the bare skin of your back.
But the nagging in the back of your mind makes you break the kiss, him trailing soft, biting kisses along your jaw and down your neck.
It's like you're dreaming and your brain is too hazy to focus. But you manage to whisper, "What about Sherry?" Your treacherous voice laced with pleasure.
"She's out of the picture," he murmurs against your neck. He scoffs, warm breath hitting your neck. "Especially now that I'm a burned freak."
Trailing his nose up your neck again until he is eye-to-eye with you again, he whispers, "I've wanted you since the moment I laid my eyes on you, Jill," his eyes shining with sincerity.
Your eyes flicker between his, before exhaling with relief and crashing your lips onto his again. Between kisses, you murmur, "This doesn't matter," stroking his burned cheek. "You're still a damn ten."
He carefully lays you with your back on the ground, lying on top of you. Both your clothes are discarded in record time, your trembling hands tangling with his in a rush to get out of those damn clothes.
His eyes linger over your body, taking in the curvatures of your body, the multiple pictures of ink adorning your skin. You blush under his his scrutiny.
"You are so beautiful," he sighs in awe, before kissing you intensely again. You fondly notice that he tastes of smoked marshmallows.
His kisses trail down your neck to your breasts, where he takes your rosy, aroused nipple into his mouth, sucking gently at first, his mustache tickling your sensitive skin. As you moan your approval, his teeth softly come into play, your hands massaging little circles on his scalp. He takes the other protruding nipple between his fingertips, squeezing it gently. You gasp into the cold autumn air, though you are far from cold.
He kisses you deeply again, his other hand trailing tauntingly along your bellybutton to your wet folds. You feel lightheaded as he wastes no time massaging your clit. Your core is burning with arousal, begging for release, and the sounds that come out of your mouth only confirm it.
Your hand wanders down to his hard length, stroking him. He groans against your lips.
You plead softly, "I need you now."
He positions himself in front of your entrance before slowly burying himself in you. Your breath hitches as he fills you.
As you wrap your legs around his waist, he moans your name.
He thrusts into you slow and deep. You whimper his name, raking your fingernails across his back. He buries his face into the crook of your neck as he fastens his pace.
"Oh god, don't stop," you breathe shakily as he finds the perfect rhythm.
The fire in your lower belly burns brighter and brighter until you find your sweet release, arching your back. Flame after flame burns behind your eyelids.
You feel Dwight pulse inside of you, while groaning, "Oh, Jill," finding his own release.
His forehead and chest show a sheen of sweat. Your heavy breathing cuts the silence as your light eyes meet his dark ones.
He kisses you tenderly, your hands caressing his cheeks. Your fingertips find the ridged skin of his cheek again. You breathe, "See? Still a ten."
He gives you a lopsided smile, running his thumb over your lips.
You feel so at ease in his arms, you wish you could stay on this cold forest ground forever. Your fingers absentmindedly tickle across his thin chest.
He offers you a smoke, and you gladly take it. You both take deep breaths, blowing the smoke into the sky. Eating the peaches that had lain forgotten next to you on the ground.
Enjoying the quiet peace.
You dust the dirt off of your bodies and get into your clothes again. You giggle as Dwight picks a gray, brittle leaf out of your hair.
"I will distract the group with some bullshit story so you can run." You nod sadly, as you don't know if you will see him again, or in what circumstances.
You move toward him to press a gentle, lingering kiss on his lips. He takes your hand in his, pressing something into your palm before breaking away, winking at you with a half-smile and exiting the bush.
Standing alone in the bush, you open your hand, revealing another wooden sculpture. This time a heart, sanded until the surface was smooth. Turning it in your hand, tears spring to your eyes. 'Jill' is carved in the middle. You trace your thumb across the letters he engraved into it, smiling slightly.
He had been carrying this with him.
He had been looking for you, too.