Daryl is perfectly calm. He's intent and perceptive as he helps come up with sketches, rough plans for likely situations. He's useful and efficient as they pack up the campsite and hide the cars and hole up in them, ready to leave at a moment's notice. He is focussed and capable as he seeks out and erases signs that point to where his people are hiding, or where Rick is heading. He is very, very quiet as he watches Rick's group leave.

The silence is by necessity – they don't know that he's there. He'll move once they're gone, finish his sweep of the borders he's set up in his head. Once they're gone.

He takes a long, slow breath, but the sick, fearful anticipation coiling around his throat does not loosen. His eyes linger along the hard, determined set to Rick's shoulders; the loose, confident swagger of Andrea's hips; the fluid, graceful lines of Glenn's back, and he tries for confidence. At the very least, he tries to look away.

He has limited success. He watches, and watches, until one, two, three minutes after the back of the last person fades from view. He stays there until he can no longer hear the slight noises that betray their movements, then stands with a disgusted snort. Standing here pining like a teenage girl, when there're things to be done. He finishes his border-check, slinks back to where the cars are sitting, not quite idling but packed up and ready to go in a hell of a hurry.

Dale is sitting on the roof of the RV, keeping watch with a rifle by his side, Carol and Sophia and Carl holed up inside with the surviving pups. He knocks on the side of the RV to make sure that Dale is awake and alert, and is satisfied with the answering double-tap.

Next, he sticks his head inside, looking in on the RV's occupants. Carol is sitting between the door and the children, a gun held uneasily in shaking hands and a frightened, cornered animal look in her wide eyes. He nods at her, as comforting as he can manage while he's this keyed up himself.

Carl is pacing, sitting and then standing abruptly, chafing against the restriction of 'child.' He wants to be helping, believes he can help, and it seems to be driving him quietly crazy. Daryl can sympathise. He claps him on the shoulder, once, hard enough to knock him forward a step, and Carl looks up at him from under the brim of his father's too-large hat. Sophia, by contrast, is still enough to worry him. He can see the ghost of a dangerous, unpredictable father in her frightened-rabbit-stillness, as though she won't be noticed if she's quiet and unmoving enough, and he spares a moment to hate her father once more, deep and dangerous, but there's nothing he can do about that.

He spares a glance for the two dogs, curled together in a corner, and recognizes his girl's stubbornly wonky ear and distinct markings. In spite of everything else, the tight, sickening knot of tension curling around his spine loosens just slightly. He stops, spares a moment that he doesn't have to run gentle fingers over her spine, before walking out abruptly.

Lori, at the wheel of one of the cars, is his next stop. She is sitting at the wheel with a gun in her lap, hands steady as a surgeon's, comfortable with the weapon in her lap and nothing but determination in her face. Whatever else he may not like about this woman, she turns hard as steel when her back is against the wall, and he can't help but respect that about her. There will be no falling to pieces with this one, not while her family is on the line, and he's glad despite himself to have that hard eyed certainty at his back if it comes down to it.

Nothing more than a nod for her – she doesn't need his comforting or approval any more than he needs hers.

He stakes out a spot with a good view of the general direction Randall indicated and hunkers down. His agitated, helpless anticipation builds and builds until his shoulders, once pressed forcibly loose and relaxed, have crept up around his ears and are fairly aching from the tension.

He's afraid to close his eyes. Scenes in black and white and red spray across the back of his eyelids when he does, tableaus of violence that shouldn't bother him, shouldn't shill him to his bones the way it does. They aren't his to protect. They aren't his responsibility, not his problem, they are not his at all, and he knows that, damnit.

Except that sometimes he doesn't. Daryl is a stubborn cuss, a real hard-headed son of a gun. He doesn't ever intend to say it; he intends to avoid acknowledging it at all, but somewhere deep and low and primal he knows that these're his people. It's deeply uncomfortable, unaccustomed, unfamiliar, and he worries at the feeling like a loose tooth, poking and prodding and pulling from all angles, almost thoughtfully. They're under his skin, and they shouldn't be. He shouldn't have let them in, but having failed that he should have sliced them out, quick and clean and right away. They're exploitable. A weakness, vulnerability that he can't afford, doesn't know how to account for, doesn't even really understand.

If he were the man he was before the world ended, he would have done it. He'd have cut them out, even if he'd had to cut himself to ribbons to do it. Because he had Merle, and no one else wanted him anyways. No one but blood would ever want such a sorry piece of shit. No one but family's ever gonna be there for you. They all think they're better than us, hold themselves above us, look down on us like we're less than nothing. They might be under your skin, brother, but you sure ain't under theirs. You, they wiped you off their heels like you're dog shi-

Sometimes he misses his brother so much it's hard to breathe.

Sometimes he wishes Merle'd just shut right up for a while.

More often than not he wants both.

Sometimes he wonders if the man his brother is, is anything like the man that Daryl misses. He's afraid they don't have much in common. He wonders when Merle became someone else, hard and hurtful and cruel. His brother loved him once, was even kind in his own way. But Merle as he was after the world ended (after he left home, after the drugs, after he went to jail, after he stopped caring about anyone or anything that wasn't Merle), that was a different beast.

Merle would have hated these people. Merle did hate some of them. Daryl doesn't like all of them either, truth be told. But he likes some of them, cares for them so much that it frightens him. These are the people he works with and fights for and protects and laughs with and would die for, and might just love. They could be family.

He starts walking again. For a quiet, moonless night, it is too damned loud inside his head.

He completes his perimeter, checks the camp. Remembers the look Rick had given him – you keep them safe – and does the circuit again – protect them – and again – I am trusting you – and again. His feet grow sore, his temples throb, his eyes are exhausted from too many hours of constant watchfulness, his back aches from the tension of holding himself strung tight and wound up, continually ready for trouble. But – you're one of us – he does it again.

And the stranger his brother had become fades, muted down to a resentful murmur in the back of his mind.


The first walker doesn't really worry him. It's alone and seems to be intent on something else, and it goes down easy, quick and quiet. The thrum of adrenaline in his system is a kick, and it breaks the monotony of darkness and stillness and deep, useless anxiety. It's almost a relief.

The next one is just as easy, as is the next. The subtle wrongness of them should have registered then – twice can be coincidence, but three times is a pattern – but he's tired and very, very focussed on not thinking about how much danger Glenn (and all the rest) could be in right now.

Then there is a pair of them, and they barely notice him before he's shooting them, one after the other and this is not right. He's good, but not that good. Not tonight. At least one of them should have smelled him, heard him, something. And. Maybe he's crazy, but probably he's not.

They are all going in the same direction.

He stops, re-orients himself, and then his vision blurs from the force of a sudden onslaught of panic and rage.

It's the same direction as the fucking farm.

He starts running.


Lori's eyes are huge, whites showing all around and practically glowing in the pre-dawn light. He guesses there must be something really damned magical about this woman, that two lifelong friends and partners are constantly, quietly at each other's throats over her, but whatever it is, Daryl's missing it. The doe-eyed confusion is slowing him down, and he already regrets not going on his own.

He can feel it, an almost physical urge to be there, fingers itching for a weapon and an enemy and the rest of him actually aching to be standing between his people and whatever is coming for them, whatever wants to do them harm. He would rather be hurt himself than see harm come to them, he would throw himself in harm's way for them, and that is frightening beyond words, scares him and shakes him right down to his marrow.

Maybe this newfound devotion of his is one-sided. Maybe he really doesn't understand people. Maybe there really is something wrong with him, something unloveable about him. But right now, there is certainty straightening his spine and affection steadying his hand and longing powering tired muscles. More than that, there is dread pushing him forward with a desperate fear – what if he is too late? To lose this new, fragile sense of family now, when he is finally carving a place for it in himself, would shatter him, a fatal blow to an exposed fault line, nothing left but shards of marble and a half-formed idea.

He cannot be too late. He will not be too late.

Dale is indecisive, Carol is petrified, Lori is frozen, and Daryl needs to be moving.

There's no good way to deal with this. Does he leave them behind, vulnerable as all hell with no one but Dale and maybe Lori as protection? Does he take them with him, a rolling-train of bulls-eyes at his back? Do they go on foot to stay undetected, by car for speed, can he afford the time it would take to be careful? Every bit of him, tightly strung with fear and the need to act, says no, no, no can't wait, he has to be there now. He wants to be rushing into the night after his wayward people. He never wants to let them out of his sight again.

"We need to do something," he says again, voice harsh and urgent. "I'm not gonna just, fucking, sit on my thumbs when-"

"We'll go, then. They need us, so we'll go." Daryl shuts up. He shuts up because it's what he wants to hear, and because it's Carol. Her face is still held in her perpetually frightened cast, but her mouth is set, eyes determined, and her hand is strong and certain on his shoulder. "They'll be alright, Daryl."

He swallows through a suddenly thick throat, looks away from her. Very, very briefly, he feels like everything will be fine, is overwhelmed by comfort and warmth and security and it leaves him breathless and nostalgic. Then he shakes his head at his own damn stupidity. It fucking well certainly will not be alright if he stands around like a sun-blinded moron.


They pack the dogs into a crate. Carl and Sophia are in the RV with strict instructions to sit down and shut up, with Carol to watch them. Dale's driving the RV, Lori and Daryl driving the other cars. Daryl has left his bike behind. He's not pleased, but they're planning on having to pull people out in a hurry, and it doesn't exactly have much passenger capacity. There's a note attached to the bike, an explanation for the others should they return to the meeting place and find it deserted.

The plan, such as it is, is to get to the farm, figure out whether Daryl is losing his mind, collect their errant group, and then the hell out of dodge.

It's not his best plan. But at least they're moving.

The farm is an hour's walk, if you're being careful and quiet. It has been five, now. It was just before dusk when they left, and it's near midnight now. He can't help thinking that something has gone wrong. They shouldn't have been gone this long. Something isn't right.

Once again, he's struck by the thought that as dangerous as the walkers are, people can be worse. And so, as frightened as he is by the idea of the others getting into trouble with walkers, he's just as afraid that they're in trouble with people. He shakes his head, as though the thoughts troubling him could be banished as easily as flies buzzing about his head.

They can't.

He drives, and drives, and does his best to ignore the visions painting the inside of his skull, of the thousand grisly deaths he is afraid he's driving towards. Then he sees the pillar of roiling, angry smoke, and the deep muted glow of a fire. And floors it.


Occasionally, in times of stress or crisis, time feels like it slows right down, the world around him moving at a crawl.

This is not one of those times.

He arrives to fire and chaos, and what might have been a farm once. And walkers, dozens, of them, distinguished by their slow, terrible single-minded motion. Gunshots and screams and ravenous, inexhaustible shambling corpses.

Daryl has never been a religious man, but if he'd ever turned his mind to imagining hell, he couldn't have done a better job than this.

He turns the car abruptly back around, the tires squealing harshly, to intercept Lori and Dale. "Stay back! Lights on, doors locked, and keep moving! Don't let 'em get a hold of you," and he's gone again, roaring off into the dark and the chaos.

He can't seem to think fast enough, can't catch up to what's happening because there's a corner of his mind, getting louder the longer it's left unanswered, appealing to any benevolent force left in the universe.

Keep them (him) safe. I'm almost there. Just five more minutes, that's all I need, just five minutes.

The building on fire looks like it was a barn, and it's surrounded by bodies. Some of them are on fire and still moving around, which is horrific and jarring. When something is on fire, it should be panicking. To see otherwise makes no sense. It makes Daryl shudder. Worse than the unnaturalness of it, though, is that the damn things are setting everything around them aflame. Most of the non-walker motion is concentrated on a house, near the barn but not yet surrounded by the walkers. He can hear yelling from that direction, the voices all unfamiliar and spiralling up into panic as the flames and the walkers get closer. Above it all is the strange, breathless moan of the walkers, broken by the screaming of horses and panicked livestock.

Five minutes. Anything. I'll do anything, just keep them safe.

He ignores the gravel road and its meandering path towards the house, cutting blind across the field. He can see the men on the outside gathering to rush the house, can see the walkers approaching it too in their relentless, unhurried, unstoppable way, and the flesh on his back is fairly crawling with his need to get over there, to do something. Daryl might be finding religion, from the vehemence of his bartering and demanding.

Anything, everything, just so long as I'm not too late. Please.

Finally, finally close enough, and action supplants desperate pleading in his head. He pulls the car into a hard turn and squealing halt and blasts his horn. Three men drop straight down, one rushes for cover, one runs at the house. The rest turn to him, guns and heads whipping around to face this fresh threat. Unlucky for them, by the time they've turned round and realized he's not one of theirs, he's got a gun up and shooting.

One, two, three go down with startled shouts and the exaggerated backwards jerk of a bullet's impact. One's left standing, frozen and bewildered but at a bad angle to Daryl's open window, he can't pull himself around enough to get a clear shot, and soon the man is going to pull himself together and Daryl is going to die- He's startled into movement by the deafening, staccato thud-thud-thud of returned fire punching holes in the car doors, too close for comfort, but the man he can't get a line on has dropped, the sharp retort of gunfire coming from the house and Daryl stamps on the gas, deeply uncomfortable with presenting a stationary target.

There follows a different kind of chaos, a shoot-out between two sides with both pausing for potshots at the on-coming horde, flames advancing and painting the scene in ominous, smoky orange and red. His side will win – they've the advantage of shelter, the outsiders are confused and in the dark and the walkers are at their backs. They'll win for numbers, skill, tactical advantage or just the animal fear of the walkers that will make the attackers clumsy and desperate. But it won't be quick enough. The walkers are close, and relentless, and too many to get around – they would be trapped inside the house. And the fire is advancing just as quick as the walkers.

They have a minute, maybe two. After that it is death by fire or guns or being torn apart by walkers.

And Daryl really wishes that this could have been one of the times when time slows itself down for him, rather than leaving him straining to catch up, confused and in danger and reacting without conscious decision. Then he might've had time to come up with a real plan, but even as he's thinking this he's veering off course again, choosing the most direct route to the besieged house. This happens to require him to mow down two of the remaining three besiegers, which is a convenient bonus. He pulls right up to the door and lays on the horn and hopes like hell that no one gets trigger-happy.

He hears Lori coming around, but sees Dale keeping some distance, as Daryl had asked – the RV is too tempting a target, and in such bad shape that a stray bullet or a few lucky walkers could bring it out of commission, and that would lead to a giant damn clusterfuck. If there are too many for two cars, some people are just going to have to run for the RV.

Finally, finally, the door opens. First out is the barrel of a shotgun, followed shortly by Shane's ugly mug and despite his own dislike for the man Daryl feels almost weak with relief for a moment.

He stares out, feral and dangerous-looking, and his eyes go almost comically wide as he grasps what's going on. He disappears, just as Daryl starts shouting. "Get in the fucking cars, you waitin' for a goddamn handwrit invitation? Hurry the fuck up, I'm working to a fuckin' deadline here! Wh-" And the door slams open again, people fairly pouring out. They pack into Lori's car first, Rick and T-Dog and an older woman and a teenage boy and she's off, then Shane crashes into Daryl's passenger seat with such momentum that the car shakes. Andrea and a large fat man and an old, white-haired man pile into his backseat and he should be moving already, there's no more space but-

But he can't leave yet because he's seen Rick and Shane and Andrea and T-Dog but there are still some people outside the house and not in the cars, exposed and vulnerable and one of them is Glenn, the fucking idiot is waiting for the stupid stragglers, of fucking course he is, and Daryl isn't going fucking anywhere- "Drive!" Shane is bellowing and Andrea's leaning out the window and taking out walkers like some kind of fucking sniper and under other circumstances that would be hot as hell but-

Daryl's just remembered the last man is still out there, and he's remembered because he can see him going for Glenn and the others and then things do slow down for him.

He sees the man stand, sees the desperate calculations in his eyes, sees him lunge, sees that it's Glenn and two girls, one holding a baseball bat, the other clutching the first and having hysterics. Despite two probably-easier targets, the man tackles Glenn – probably hoping to take out the only one that's armed. There's a struggle but the stranger is bigger and mean-looking and took Glenn by surprise, and when they come up he's got a gun to Glenn's head and the girls are screaming and the walkers are getting closer and the house is catching fire but Daryl has time, because everything is moving at half-speed around him.

The man opens his mouth, probably looking to score a ride out of here but Daryl is out of the car, one hand on his gun and one hauling Shane halfway into the driver's seat, "Get out of here!" and the man has a strong survival instinct, Daryl will give him that, because Shane adjusts immediately and the car is barrelling away into the night.

That shuts everyone up for a second, the surprise of seeing their only viable escape leave so unceremoniously. (And Daryl will remember this, too. Because he knows that Dale is waiting nearby, but Shane was perfectly happy abandoning them without knowing that. Daryl will remember that, alright.) The sudden shock of fear and betrayal on Glenn's face is almost enough to make him stand up and announce himself, but speed and darkness are his only chance at killing this fucker without risking Glenn.

Instead he moves, quick and quiet and low to the ground, body held with a kind of intent, focussed intention that has always felt unreal after the fact. Times like this he can see what needs to happen next and just do it, a sort of power of sight or understanding that makes everything clear and simple. He's always been more comfortable acting than speaking, and times like this make the world make sense. So he's behind the man almost before thinking about it, quick and easy, and he shoots him without hesitation, because that's what needs to happen next. Glenn's out of immediate danger, and the last of Daryl's people are safe(ish).

Then his easy, simple, understandable world washes away into chaos, sound and light and terror pouring into the space in his head hollowed out by his single-minded purpose. Reality snaps back into place and there is screaming and fire and a dead body on the ground before him and blood on his hands and splattered across his shirt and Glenn staring at him with wide, dark eyes.

And there are walkers at their backs, coming ever closer.

"Daryl," Glenn's voice rough and breathy and shocked and it's a voice that's going to visit Daryl late at night but right now is a move-or-die sort of moment.

He presses a hand to Glenn's shoulder, solid and real and within arms' reach, as much to reassure himself as Glenn (something listened, and Daryl maybe shouldn't have said, anything, everything, just s'long as I'm there in time now that he's half-afraid something might be coming to collect on his half-hysterical promises) and intends to push him in the direction of the RV, get the last of his people to something approaching safety.

Instead arms wrap around him, sudden and fierce, a body pressed tight to his own, warm and whole and safe, and it takes eons for his arms to respond to the conflicting messages he's giving them (push, pull, hold, release, don't ever let go again) but they settle uneasily around Glenn. He curls inward unintentionally, drawing Glenn closer and pressing his face in, quickly, quickly, against dark sweat-damp hair and taking a quick, shaking breath.

There are lips against his ear (he shivers despite the time and the place and the imminent death and realizes he's in deep without hope of escape) "Thank you." He's released, left with a bizarre feeling of loss and cold despite the heat of the night and the sweat beading on his face. "Man, am I glad to see you. I hope you've got a way outta here?" The words are pouring from him in a nervous rush and Daryl's already herding him and the two no-longer-screaming girls towards the RV, hidden out in the darkness, safety finally in reach. It doesn't come a moment too soon, the RV door slammed shut behind Daryl with walkers close at their backs, grasping malformed horrors out of a nightmare, rotting in the darkness and almost within arms' reach.

But they're safe. For now.


So. I acknowledge that I am a terrible person for taking this long. Action scenes of any sort take me quite a while. I hope this is worth the wait.