A/N: I don't know how, but somehow this ended up in the Comics section for TWD as opposed to the TV shows section. With this being Daryl/OC, I don't see how that'd work. I put it in the TV section initially, but I just changed it back, so hopefully it'll stay this time. Sheesh. Anyway, I hope you finally enjoyed the first chapter. Enjoy this one, too, maybe? :) Olive is mine, as always.
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Screams so piercing they could actually curdle one's blood if they tried pounded against the walls of the prison blocks. The cement walls made such sounds reverberate within, sounding the alarm of a vicious attack in the block adjacent to C-Block.
Daryl and Olive awoke, each startled by the sounds but determined to help. Each threw on their clothes as quickly as possible, lacing their boots and grabbing their weaponry before heading out of the block to join the others who were accumulating to assist in the assault.
"Daryl!" Olive shouted over the noise, and he turned to look at her prior to catching a box of ammo she tossed to him. They may need it should the attack prove to be worse than expected. It was.
It looked as though walkers had appeared within those staying there, and Olive made quick work in putting one down with her pitchfork the instant they entered the block, preventing it from getting to a woman screaming in the corner.
Daryl headed immediately to a small child at the base of the stairs, picking him up and shooting an arrow directly through the head of the walker attempting to get to the understandably disgruntled young boy.
Rick was soon behind them, followed by Glenn, Tyreese, and Sasha. All assisted in clearing the block of walkers, nothing short of tiring and a bit more occupying than anticipated. Pools of blood, screaming children, and some dying from bites and scratches were all that remained once the block had been cleared of the folks still living.
Olive breathed a sigh of relief as Daryl returned the young boy to his mother.
"You okay?" she asked gently, still catching her breath.
Daryl nodded. "Yeah - you? None of 'em gotcha?" he asked in return, reaching out a hand to stroke her arm.
Olive shook her head. "I'm fine." Crooking her elbow, she coughed lightly into it and his arm moved to her back, patting it lightly.
"Ya sure? You were kinda coughin' in yer sleep last night's why I ask."
She could tell he was concerned and she shook her head, giving him a soft smile. "It's just a cough, Daryl. I'll be fine." She reached down and gave his ass a gentle pat before winking and moving over to where Hershel was inspecting the bodies.
"What's wrong with his eyes?" Rick asked, pointing out the blood oozing from Charlie - one of the walkers - where he lay on the floor.
"Same thing with that woman by the stairs and with Patrick," Hershel noted, speaking with Dr. Subramanian, a man from Woodbury, about the subject. In hushed tones, they chatted for a moment, making Olive a bit tense.
"Daryl," she whispered, turning her sights to her man who was giving her his full attention, "you mentioned that pig was ill."
"Ya think they could be linked to Patrick's illness?" he asked in the same volume she'd given him.
Olive was about to speak again when Hershel noticed their rather quiet conversation and butted in with, "What's that, Olive?"
Olive did not enjoy being put on the spot, but Daryl nudged her gently, so she cleared her throat prior to speaking. "Rick said that the pig from the pen was also sick, bleeding from her eyes just like these people. Is that linked to all this?"
"Flu strains can be passed from pigs and birds just like in olden times," Hershel agreed, turning back to the other doctor. "Maybe it's spreading."
"If that's the case," Dr. Subramanian said with a knowing kind of sigh, "everyone in the block could be infected with the strain. We'll have to quarantine them off until we know for sure."
Olive turned her face into her shoulder, coughing into it once more before nodding in Hershel's direction. "You need help with the body detail?" she asked and when he nodded, she turned to Daryl while the others continued talking. "Go on with Rick. He may need something done about those pigs outside, quarantine off the sick ones like we're having to do in here."
"Undoubtedly, we'll have a council meeting later. Ya comin' to that?" he asked, chewing on his lip nervously.
Olive nodded. "Of course I will be. I was honored when Rick asked me to be on that council."
"He trusts yer judgment and I do, too - more than anyone."
She smiled softly. "I know you do."
"So you'll be there?" he asked again.
"You know I will be." He pressed his lips to her forehead before giving her hand a gentle squeeze and following Rick out of the block.
Olive coughed once more and Hershel approached her, watching as she wiped her mouth onto her t-shirt sleeve.
"So," she said brightly, "what can I help with?"
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"I think a quarantine may be the best chance those people have at survival just in case they do come down with some kind of illness," Hershel explained. They had met inside the prison library, all of them seated around a table there - Hershel, Rick, Tyreese, Sasha, Glenn, Daryl, and Carol.
Daryl was fidgety - where the hell are you, Olive? - so he didn't speak a damn word the entire time they discussed the parameters of the quarantine and all of that. He didn't hear much - maybe a word or two, here and there, but nothing more than that. Nothing specific. As the meeting adjourned, Carol stopped Daryl by grabbing a hold of his arm.
"The hell?" he said, withdrawing his arm sharply. "Did I say ya could touch me?"
Carol stared at him, wide-eyed, shaking her head in his direction. "Is it really that bad if I touch you?" she inquired, a kind of twisted turn in her voice.
"Yeah, it is. I have a girlfriend, Carol, and it ain't you, or maybe ya didn't notice that."
Carol's gaze narrowed. "I didn't want this to happen. I didn't ask for her to show up and fuck things up for us."
"'Us'...you make it sound like I wanted you, like somethin' woulda happened if Olive didn't exist er somethin'. Are ya delusional? Ya must be. I never had feelings fer ya like that. Yer like my mom." He paused, scoffing as he shook his head, feeling more anger boil up than he'd intended. "I gotta go see Olive." He turned to walk away before a snigger and a sentence he was afraid he'd hear sounded in his ears.
"Good luck with that."
He wheeled around, eyes looking directly at her. "What did ya say?"
"Good luck seeing her, talking to her, fucking her - " She paused, folding her arms across her hollow chest. "She's in the hot zone."
Daryl's head spun with questions, with wonderment, with shock. "Olive's being quarantined? You kept this from me?!"
Carol nodded resolutely. "I wanted to."
"You wanted to? Are you fucking serious?"
Carol nodded, a kind of sick smirk on her face. "Yep. He said she's been coughing, so that makes her more vulnerable to catching this flu strain. She's locked in D-Block until Hershel or Dr Subramanian clears her." She chortled to herself and Daryl's blood came to a rolling boil. "Bitch deserves what's coming to her, fucking up my life like that, taking you from me."
"She didn't take me from anyone - I loved her first!" Daryl said, his teeth gritted. "I never loved you." He paused, shaking his head in disgust. "I was right when we was back on the Greene farm. Y'are a stupid bitch." He turned on his heels and stalked away, his leg-strides long and purposeful.
The instant he rounded the corner, however, his face fell and his insides wobbled. His love - his only love - was being quarantined, and Carol hadn't told him. Slinging his crossbow back over his shoulder, he took off running, at a full-on sprint until he reached the quarantine zone. Karen was near the door closest to him, tending to a sick resident. Apparently, she, too, was being cut off.
"Karen! Hey!" Daryl shouted, catching her attention as she came to the door. "Where's Olive? She in there?" Karen nodded but said nothing. "I wanna talk to her."
"Go around the block. You'll see an interrogation room where you can talk to her through the window. I'll send her there."
Daryl immediately sprinted off to the room Karen had specified, leaning his crossbow against the wall as he studied the massive glass wall just in front of him. A metal kind of door, like the ones at pharmacy drive-thrus, was on the wall near the floor, but he stared into the glass, watching as the door on the opposite wall, from inside the block, opened. A light flickered until it was on and there stood Olive, catching her breaths between coughs as she entered the room.
Daryl's heart broke, his hands coming to the glass and pressing his palms against it. His eyes welled with real, hot tears and upon sighting him, hers did, too.
"Olive...baby," he breathed, his voice cracking as she came to him.
"I'm so sorry, Daryl," she apologized, placing each of her palms flat against the glass just on the other side of his.
"Carol kept it from me thatcha were here or I'da been here sooner."
Olive shook her head. "It's okay. Hershel says I'm more vulnerable to the flu strain that's here because I had Swine Flu when that outbreak happened a couple of years ago. He said it could return, but it makes me susceptible to this flu. I'm already sick with something, so my chances of not getting this virus are slim."
His face brightened for a moment. "Maybe I was infected, too. Maybe that's enough to get me in there with ya - "
"Daryl, no. You're not infected and you're sure as hell not comin' in here with me."
His chin quivered. "I don't wanna leave ya in there by yerself."
"There are people taking care of me. I'll be right as rain soon. I know it."
"What'll I do out here withoutcha?" Olive felt the tears fall as he spoke, pressing her fingers firmer into the glass as if wanting to feel the heat of his skin seeping through the spaces. "I got no one out here."
"Daryl, you have family out there that need you. You need to be with them. I'm not going anywhere, at least not for a while."
Daryl pressed his hands further against the glass, his body almost entirely pushed against the wall now. "Olive..." he breathed, his breath fogging the barrier somewhat. "...I love you."
Olive's tears streamed from her eyes, clouding her vision as she, too, moved closer to the glass. "And I love you," she responded, sniffling back the sadness. "I'll be alright."
Daryl shook his head slowly, moving one hand towards her face to draw lines against the glass, lines that matched the patterns of her falling tears. "I'd wipe away them tears if I could." He frowned a bit, placing his hand back against the glass and watching as he tilted his fingers some, rotating them in position ever-so-slightly to reflect the spaces in her own fingers. "If I could push my hand through that glass - "
" - your hand would be in mine," she finished gently, her forehead leaning against the chilled substance keeping them apart. "I'm feverish. I can feel how good the glass is against my skin."
Daryl's chin wavered as he, too, pushed his forehead to the glass. "I'm so sorry, Olive. I wish I'd taken better care o' ya."
"You love me. That's more than enough care for me."
"Daryl," Rick's voice said from down the corridor behind him.
"I ain't goin' back to that block tonight."
"But we could use your - "
"Just leave me be!" he tossed over his shoulder before returning to focus on Olive once more. Rick left without another word.
"Daryl, you really should - "
"I don't care. I ain't leavin' ya. Not nobody not know how."
"Okay, Mr. Wizard. I'm just saying - "
"Yer worth more to me than anythin' in this world. I need you and I won't be withoutcha. I can't letcha suffer alone."
Olive relented, knowing that there would be no persuading him to go back to the safe zone. He would stay here with her tonight, each leaned against the two sides of a dividing wall. They would huddle beneath their blankets and whisper soft nothings, exchanging more tears and silence than substantial words. With nothing to go on for the time being, who could blame them?