White Blank Page

Well I did it again. I scrapped a chapter because I thought it was garbage. Hopefully being able to really sit and knuckle down on this will make it better. Seem to only be able to do this on my days off, which is few and far between nowadays. Enough of that, I hope you all enjoy it. Happy reading! Cheers!

Also: I own nothing in regards to The Walking Dead. All rights belong to the copyright holder.


Chapter 8

•I still don't know what I'm doing here, carrying on as I am like what happened at the barn didn't occur. My Sophia didn't stumble out from that barn—

But she did. And I saw.

She's gone and there's nothing more for me to do. I don't have anyone. I'm alone in this world. I'm alone in this group of people who are treating me like I'm crazy. I don't understand how they can so easily forget what happened. I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm not actually acting like all this bothers me. Perhaps acting like nothing is wrong is encouraging them to keep going, just sweep this horrible event under the rug, starting anew. I've learned to cope with these things for years under Ed's rule, just shine it on like this doesn't hurt— how pathetically weak.

We're still waiting on Rick and Glenn's return. They've been gone since the barn incident. Hershel left to town and they haven't been back since. We're all worried, Lori especially. Granted she's more furious that he isn't back. Shane lied to her to get her to come home— stop her search. She'd taken Maggie's car and gone out to find Rick. She crashed the car and was attacked by walkers. It's a miracle Shane found her when he did or even at all.

Lori's story bothered me some. Nothing about her, it was just— him.

I went to him. I wanted to confront him about his role in the group. Despite our exchange of words earlier, there was something pulling me back to him.

I'd already gone asking if he'd seen Lori earlier when we realized she had been missing, but he just scoffed at me that she'd probably gone on her own to find them. It took me several seconds to see that he had moved all his belongings away from camp, trying his damnedest to pull away from us, but still being at arm's reach. I whirled on him begging him to stop. I'd already lost my girl; hoping the implication wouldn't be lost on him. At that point he had gotten up, real close to my face and hissed, "Yeah that wasn't my problem neither." He stalked off into the woods, disappearing into the darkness.

I couldn't just leave things at that. Shambles and fragments of what we were. I had to get him to understand.

I went to him— He yelled. I listened. Let him holler at me 'till he was blue in the face. He was doing his best to break me, mold me back into that cowering, mousey thing of a woman I once was. I held fast. I didn't falter— not until my baby. Not until he put her in front of me, pointing out that I had failed, not only as a provider and a protector— but, furthermore, as a Mother. I hadn't done my obligatory duty of ensuring her survival. The one thing I had to do. The only thing I should have been able to do.

And I couldn't even do it. That one little thing.

He was angry. I wasn't sure with whom he was upset with more: myself or— himself? Somewhere in his berating, he'd slowly brought himself into the rant.

"Sophia wasn't mine." He barked; that gleam of anger in his eyes held just for me.

If she hadn't been his problem, then why did it bother him so much what happened to her? What was he really trying to say? When I didn't react to him, he made a lunge forward. I recoiled. Instinct. I thought he was really going to hit me. I snapped my eyes shut for a second, but felt no crack of his hand against my cheek. His hand wavered above his head as he continued to study me like a hawk, eyes locked on me as he slowly pulled back.

I almost felt like if he had struck me that I deserved it. Maybe my presence was silently prodding at him that he had offered me nothing but empty promises and wishful thinking— false hope. That somewhere in all this I had come to blame him, point my finger at him, and tell him that he was just as much of a failure as I was.

Not for one second do I blame Daryl.

I still feel like this all just isn't real.

I needed others to do what I had already been doing to myself— internally beating myself up. Perhaps I sought Daryl out tonight because I knew he was going to hurt me. Not physically, but verbally. Force me to feel something. Help me to understand that this was all very real and that I was alone.

Sophia is gone. What more do I have now?•

Daryl didn't move. He just sat outside the guard tower cabin with her journal still splayed in his lap, fingers delicately thumbing the next page, eyes scanning the same phrase over and over again. He figured if he reread it till the words were burnt into his retinas that maybe somehow the words would unscramble themselves and reveal the real words that he only knew she meant. Her statement was all the same no matter what.

She didn't blame him.

Despite how close they had gotten in recent months, he had still felt a twinge of guilt that somehow she still held resentment for what he hadn't done. For forcing his hope on her.

There it was though. Clearly written in her half-looped handwriting.

"Not for one second do I blame Daryl."

He vigorously raked a hand through his hair, lip curling up, trying to stifle the incredulous smile that was forcing itself across his lips. All this time he had thought that she felt he was responsible for Sophia. He wanted to kick himself but knew that wouldn't do any good. It wouldn't matter since he could do nothing about it. He couldn't ask why she never blamed him or even apologize for assuming she had been resentful of him for it. Carol was dead. She wasn't coming back neither.

Daryl let out a shuddered sigh as he began massaging his brows, biting his lip. His heart felt heavy. His body twitchy, a swelling anxiety in the pit of his gut.

All these years his Daddy had been dead, yet somehow he still managed to edge his way into his head. Make him believe he was the piece of shit he thought himself to be— believed himself to be. Carol was too forgiving. Where she had garnered that strength from he wouldn't know. She had always been considered the weak link in their group, heading the menial chores like cooking and laundry, but frankly without her they would have lost their consistency and what little semblances of their old lives they desperately clung to.

Reading her entry brought about his own old turmoils. He remembered hollering in her face, getting closer than he wanted, making attempts to scare her away. He didn't want nobody looking to him as if he would make things better. He didn't want nobody trying to care for him. If he had nobody that wanted him then things like that wouldn't hurt so much.

Daryl could still visualize the way her lip quivered at the words he threw at her, their sting evident in the way her lashes fluttered slightly trying to prevent tears she was holding back. Her eyes were a brilliant blue the way the redness in the whites of her eyes forced the color to stand out like bright jewels. He wanted to tear her down. She had thrown everything in his face when she had refused to attend the funeral. All his time spent out searching, the pain he had shouldered clambering up the ravine and back to the farm. Perhaps the worst being that Carol had felt that his time had been for nothing with that one refusal.

He had been angry. He wanted to hit her. He couldn't do it though. Daryl knew in that moment when he had raised his hand that he had crossed the line. He had crossed a line he never wanted to step over. He had become like his Daddy in that singular moment and regretted it. He'd seen how Carol recoiled back, her head snapping up like she had already been struck, the glint of blue from out of the corner of her eyes still unwavering and unaccusing. She knew what it was like. She understood. Daryl never wanted that for himself. Exerting power over another to prove his own self-worth, that wasn't him and it never would.

Striking women was something he never did and he sure as hell wasn't going to start all because he couldn't control his temper in that moment. Sure Carol didn't so much as flinch most of the duration of his yelling and that had unnerved him, but it didn't warrant him striking her because of it. She was reacting just as he had whenever his Daddy came after him. It was her defense mechanism and she had only been reacting out of a forced habit.

Stoic mind and the fear hidden deep in their eyes. They were the same down to the scars on their bodies and the stories they never told.

The thought that Carol recoiled from him as if he were her deceased husband left an unsettling burst of disgust that had crept up into his throat, thick and sickening to the taste. That wasn't him. He had become what he had tried for so long to never be. The one thing he had been utterly disgusted with: men that beat on women to exude their dominance.

Daryl snorted, shaking his head. After his exchange of words with Carol, he stormed off into the woods. He remembered the pain. He looked down at his knuckles, fingers delicately running over the faint traces of scarred tissue scattered across the rugged skin. He remembered beating his fists into an unsuspecting tree, anger still brimming at the collar. After he had felt the warmth of his blood trickle down his knuckles, skin shredded and bruised, he swore he would never cross that line again. He was afraid of becoming like his old man and he had taken that sudden step in that direction.

He reached into his pockets looking for his newly acquired packet of cigarettes. He popped a cigarette into his mouth and struck the match he had against the box, watching as the tiny flame faltered in the wind. He brought the tip to the flame as it flared to life, taking a drag and letting out a stream of smoke out through his nostrils.

Daryl shut his eyes for a moment listening to the gentle rustle of trees behind him, clanging of limbs being run across the chain link fence below. The world around him was calm. Internally he was a spiral of mixed emotions and frustrations. There was no resolve to his problems. They had all been left open after Carol had gone.

He resented her for leaving.

It wasn't her fault though. She had been protecting the group. Her friends. Her family. It had been all to protect what she loved and cared about the most. If he looked at it as an equation, he was a variable in that formula that she had felt worthy of caring about. He was included in that list of people she cared and, hell, even loved.

He felt like he was on the verge of gagging.

Daryl hated himself in that moment. The realization that it had all been so they could survive was the ever-present stake being hammered repeatedly into his heart that he had been selfish. He gave no fucks the day the Governor had tried taking the Prison. All he had seen was his moment of revenge. That one second that he had taken to ram his knife into the Governor's other still working eye had been the only thing buzzing in his head. The rage-drunken stupor he had felt when the blood had gushed down his hands and that undeniable curdling scream echoing loud through the Prison halls had been all he was looking for.

Then the world went quiet around him. The silence was eerily calm. In the back of his head he could hear the fuzzy screaming and crying. That was when he had seen Rick and Glenn hurrying out of the cell-block. There was no relief of triumph on their faces. Just the looks of terror and sadness. He had spied Carol slumped up against a wall, head drooping onto her shoulder, her chest struggling to take in oxygen. The image was reminiscent of when he had found her in the tombs.

It hadn't been the same.

Carol didn't get up. She didn't move. She didn't beg. He had put the gun to her head. The words were caught in his throat. He had wanted to tell her, but he couldn't. Even now with the thoughts tumbling over and over in his head, the words were lost to him. All he had wanted to say and he couldn't even offer her that. He hadn't said a damn thing to her and he knew he had fucked up.

He had been the fucked up one all along. He couldn't even say one little thing. After all they had been through and he had pussied out.

"I'm sorry."


A/N: Thanks for reading and if you would kindly, please leave a review!