Richard's bold plan to bring Ezekiel into the alliance against Negan hits a snag named Daryl Dixon.
You and I Collide
But I'm open, you're closed
where I follow, you'll go
I worry I won't see your face
light up again
Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills your mind
I somehow find
You and I collide
I'm quiet you know
You make a first impression
Well, I've found I'm scared to know
I'm always on your mind
Don't stop here
I lost my place
I'm close behind
Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills your mind
You finally find
You and I collide
You finally find
You and I collide
-Howie Day: "Collide"
"This was a waste of our time." Rick said, looking like he wished he had something he could break or better yet, someone he could punch in the face.
"We can't leave until we convince him to join us; we just don't have the manpower without the Kingdom."Jesus said, sounding extremely frustrated.
They were in the quarters that they had been assigned for their overnight stay, Richard having escorted them there after Ezekiel's refusal to even discuss an alliance.
"Sounded pretty damn sure." Daryl growled skeptically. "Gotta be someplace else we can try."
"There isn't." Jesus said, "I've been all over this part of the world, all the way up to D.C and out to the coast. This is the only community that is anywhere near the size of Sanctuary. We need Kingdom on our side."
"Then we need to find a way to convince their... King to join us." Rick muttered, still looking like he felt Ezekiel was a raving loon, but willing to overlook that if he was willing to throw his lot in with them.
"There's a way to convince him, but none of you have the balls to do it." Richard said, his mouth twisting in distaste. He looked specifically at Daryl as if daring him to disagree and then shook his head, turned on his heel and left the room.
Figuring the only way to see what it was about was to play along; Daryl followed the King's lieutenant into the hallway, nodding a clear I got this look at Rick.
"Whatta ya mean you got a way to convince him?" Daryl asked without preamble.
"Hit him where it hurts." Richard said, his mouth twisting into an ugly smile.
Daryl frowned and tilted his head then crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for the other man to elaborate.
"There's a woman, in a little place north of town." Richard said, his squinty eyes boring into Daryl's, "Zeke makes special visits out there pretty regular."
"Why?" Daryl asked, trying to affect a bored tone, but he could pretty much guess where this was going.
"What else?" Richard rolled his eyes, grabbed his own crotch and then crudely mimicked pumping his pelvis rapidly up and back.
"Shit." Daryl muttered, grimacing in distaste, thoughts of Negan's unwilling harem haunting him. "She want to be there?"
"She's dippin' in the well pretty damn deep. He gives her whatever she wants—food and even one of our best horses—and she sure as hell don't do any work here in town to earn it." Richard said bitterly.
"Long as it's really her choice, none of my business..." Daryl shrugged and looked uncomfortable. He understood very well how someone could trade their body for safety—hell for all he knew, she was in love with the King and he with her...
Richard just stared at him with an expression that said Daryl wasn't getting the point.
"So I figure we take out his piece of ass and make it look like the same Saviors that already got a piece of her came back to finish the job." Richard said with purposeful menace.
"You think that'll motivate him?" he said, narrowing his eyes as if considering it while inside he was seething. This asshole was ready to kill an innocent woman for the sake of his revenge.
"Kill two birds with one stone as far as I'm concerned." Richard nodded with a wolfish grin, "Ever since that grey haired bitch Carol showed up Ezekiel's had his head up his ass—"
Daryl saw Richard's mouth continue to move, knew he was still talking, spewing forth a listing of wrongs and slights he felt had been committed against him, justifying his venomous murderous plans, but all Daryl could hear was white noise, then a gale force rushing sound like the wind storm that had tried to kill them all in that barn, and then he saw...
Her soft lips brushing his forehead, reinforcing her words: "You're every bit as good as them, every bit..."
Her trembling body as he stopped her from bolting past him to embrace her dead child...
Her unflinching stance, waiting for the blow after she kept him from leaving the farm with her words...
Her standing beside him on the prison tower, stepping up to take her rightful place as defender, rifle in hand...
Her grin as she flirted, pushing his boundaries atop the bus, wishing she'd pushed harder...
Her body, feather light in his arms as he pulled her out of Solitary, his heart soaring that her grave would remain empty...
Her eyes filled with happy welcome even after he'd left with Merle...
Her telling him he'd have to learn to live with the love, confident and in charge, running the place...
Her just gone, lost again, this time to Rick's swift rush to judgment...
Her face so unsure of her welcome, suddenly appearing there in the woods, even after just saving them, all by herself...
Her standing by the running car when he came out of the woods...
Her flying through the air as the car came out of nowhere and slammed into her...
Her hand on his shoulder stopping him from killing everyone in the hallway at Grady...
Her kiss to his forehead: "You have to feel it..."
Her look of puzzlement when he refused the pistol she'd stolen...
Her distance...
Her horror blanked face when he asked her if she was good...
Her admission that she wasn't, taking her into his arms, offering solace...
Her refusal to take it...
Her silence the last time he'd seen her as they buried Denise.
One after another the images rushed by; he couldn't stop them from crowding their way into his head until all that was left was a white hot rage.
She was here.
Alive.
And this ass hole wanted to kill her.
Richard's head bounced off the wall with such a loud crack that Rick and Jesus came barreling out of the room to see what the hell the noise was. They found him on the floor, unconscious, a bruise rapidly forming on his jaw, blood leaking from his mouth.
Daryl was gone.
"Where's the cat?" Carol asked, looking around when she opened the door, taking in Ezekiel's lack of royal robes and the uncharacteristically nervous fidget of his hand on the bowl of fruit he was holding out to her.
"Shiva is having her supper so I thought I'd take you up on the standing invitation to join your repast." Ezekiel smiled, but again, there was something off in his voice and he was alone.
"Where's Jerry?" Carol asked, frowning. Either Richard and/or Jerry always flanked their King, especially when he was out and about without the tiger.
"Standing as guardian at your gate." Ezekiel said, turning and gesturing at the big man, who leaned in and waved at Carol, but didn't flash his usual smile. Instead he looked pensive, even troubled before he took a few steps back to move out of sight, granting them some privacy.
"What's going on?" Carol asked, her hackles rising, her hand going to her knife.
"Can I not pay the fair damsel Carol a social call without having an ulterior motive?' Ezekiel asked, his voice rising, affecting offense, his free hand spreading over his chest.
Carol's eyes narrowed and she pursed her lips before answering.
"No." she said firmly, matching his raised volume, "And if you don't think I understand your motives by now, you don't know me at all."
"Yeah, but I do." The voice at the gate was one she never thought she'd hear again.
"You son of a bitch; you found her, didn't you?" Daryl had barked when he'd stormed out of the house in which they'd been allowed to stay and came face to face with Morgan Jones.
"Daryl." Morgan said evenly, but blocked his way, his staff at the ready. He'd been surreptitiously watching the three men from Alexandria and Hilltop's progress, unwilling to give away his presence, but seeing Daryl come out of the house alone with a full head of steam, he knew that somehow the Archer had learned about Carol.
"You both been here this whole time?"Daryl seethed, leaning in, invading Morgan's space, intentionally intimidating with his taut angry posture.
"You need to calm down." Morgan said stoically.
"I know she's here—Richard told me. Where is she?" Daryl snarled, grabbing a handful of Morgan's shirt at his chest with his stronger hand.
The barest hint of a smile crossed Morgan's lips. He'd promised Carol he wouldn't tell Daryl she was here.
He hadn't.
Richard had.
"She's been through a lot." Morgan said carefully, mentally crossing his fingers that he was doing the right thing. There was a fine line between being a dick by going back on his word to Carol and hoping he was truly helping his friend by sending this man to her.
"We've all been through a lot!" Daryl snarled sarcastically, releasing Morgan with a shove back. "Some of us stay and face up to it instead of takin' off when people's backs are turned!"
"She wanted to die, Daryl." Morgan said quietly, his voice full of emotion, "One of the Saviors shot her... twice... She told me to leave her, just let her bleed out onto the pavement. Kingdom scouts found us, brought us here and saved her." He omitted the fact that he had killed the Savior who'd been about to make her death wish come true.
Daryl's anger drained off, replaced by fear for her and... something else he wasn't ready to give a name to yet.
"But she's okay now?" Daryl asked, his tone tentative with concern. "Healed up?"
"She's getting there. She had her reasons for leaving Alexandria; they haven't changed. She left a letter..."
"Saw it."
"Then you know how much she was hurting—inside—and I know you have a bond, but—"
"You don't know shit." Daryl scowled.
"She says doesn't want to see you." Morgan told him and watched the play of emotions move across Daryl's face: the quick wince of pain as if he'd been slapped and then the determination, the slow deep breath to gather himself.
"Need to know she's safe." He grunted.
"And you won't believe anything I say until you've seen her with your own two eyes." Morgan sighed.
"That prick—Richard? He wants to kill her." Daryl's jaws ground together in anger, pointing back to the building where he'd just laid the other man out, his voice rising, "Said that's how we get King Zeke to go to war."
"His brother..." Morgan started to try to defend Richard, but Daryl cut him off.
"Yeah, Negan killed a lot of people's brothers—I watched him murder Abe and Glenn—that don't mean I go around looking to kill people to get some sort of fucked up revenge!"
"Oh my God." Morgan's mouth came open in horror to hear of the deaths. He hadn't been in Alexandria long, but he knew how close all of the people from Rick's original group were to each other. Carol would be devastated by the news.
"I ain't gonna tell her." Daryl said solemnly, as if he could read Morgan's mind. "Weren't nothing any of us could've done to stop it..." that knowledge had been hard won, but he was finally starting to believe it after spending time at Hilltop with Maggie and Sasha. For all he knew, Negan had targeted Glenn the second he had lunged for his wife because he wanted to add Maggie to his harem.
The idea of Carol going anywhere near that fucking asshole son of a bitch prick psychopath was all his worst nightmares come to life.
"But she'll feel guilty because she wasn't there to try..." Morgan nodded. "Even if she doesn't want to..."
"All she's ever done is try to save the people she cares about; I get that she's tired of the killing—fuck we all are—but she didn't do wrong by it, ever, she saved us." Daryl said, going nose to nose with Morgan, "You can shove your all life is precious bullshit sideways—some life is more precious than others."
"Like hers..." Morgan said quietly, surprising Daryl by agreeing and looking him right in the eyes.
"I just need to know she's okay... that she's doin' okay... that she's ..." Daryl murmured, unsure now.
If she was... with Ezekiel, he didn't want to get in the way. He'd swallowed his confusing feelings when he'd learned she'd taken up with Tobin, knowing he had no right to object. He wanted her to be happy and if she'd found someone that could do that for her, who could give her things he had never been able to for whatever fucked up reason...
"She says she doesn't want to see you..." Morgan repeated, intruding on Daryl's thoughts.
Another brief look of pain passed over Daryl's face and then he looked down at his feet and swallowed hard, nodding stoically, wiping the back of his hand across his lips, knowing he'd lost her before he'd ever really decided what the hell to do about how she made him feel. He'd shoved it aside for so long, unable to process those feelings that she'd moved on...
"But we both know how good a liar she can be." Morgan's mouth turned up at one corner when Daryl's head bobbed up like a puppet on a string, frowning in disbelief, his feet shifting back and forth.
"Take this road about a mile north of town. Yellow house beside a cemetery with an iron fence all around it." Morgan instructed, pointing his staff in the right direction. Daryl still looked unsettled and unsure, but shouldered his pack and started down the road Morgan had indicated.
"And Daryl?" Morgan called after him, "You never saw me."
The big one—Jerry?—was standing at the iron gate of the house Morgan had described. A horse was gazing in the yard, nature's lawnmower, and there was also a fairly freshly dug grave, the earth still loose and disturbed over it, with no grass yet growing. Did that mean she was living in a graveyard? He grunted to himself with dark humor. The whole world was just one big graveyard now.
"Greetings friend Daryl!" Jerry smiled, though he didn't move. "Have you come to pay a call on fair Lady Carol?"
"How does he make you spout all that bullshit?" Daryl drawled, "Or did all you all just decide for some reason to humor his really bad Renaissance Fair asshole delusion?"
"Dude's got a tiger." Jerry grinned conspiratorially, not really answering.
Daryl sighed and nodded in agreement.
"Do you wish to pass?"
"That allowed?" Daryl asked, carefully eying the sword and pistol Jerry carried over his armor.
"You're the dude who escaped from Sanctuary. Not sure I could stop you." Jerry said very seriously.
The fact that he was armed, about a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than Daryl made the statement almost laughable.
The suddenly raised voices coming from the direction of the house caught both men's attention.
"Can I not pay the fair damsel Carol a social call without having an ulterior motive?' Ezekiel asked, his voice rising, affecting offense, his free hand spreading over his chest.
Carol's eyes narrowed and she pursed her lips before answering.
"No." she said firmly, matching his raised volume, "And if you don't think I understand your motives by now, you don't know me at all!"
"Yeah, but I do." Daryl said, his mouth an angry horizontal slash, striding towards the house with firm purpose, his storm cloud blue eyes colliding with Carol's.
Dun dun dun!
It's happening, people!
Thank you to everyone who has favorited, followed & reviewed. I'm sorry I can't do individual replies right now, I'm heading into Finals week at University and writing is my reward for getting a set of papers graded & that's all I really have time to do. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. DD1
