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Chapter Ten
As soon as Gareth had dropped Daryl's second bloody arm from his grip, Rick tried to move forward. His hands and feet scrambled to find purchase on the sandy earth beneath him as he attempted to propel himself to Daryl's side. The sudden urgency to get to his friend seized Rick's heart, his movements panic-induced and uncoordinated, only allowing him to close distance a little before Gareth planted himself firmly in his way and he dropped to his stomach. From that position one of Rick's arm instinctively reached through the standing man's legs, fingers stretching desperately to cut down the space between them and the bleeding man. Pain spiked through Rick's still-healing wrist when a foot came crashing down on top of his hand, making him instantly draw it back to his chest as Gareth stepped away, satisfied he had stopped the man's advancing body.
Glancing up Rick found himself now only two yards away from Daryl, close enough to see the uncontrollable tremble that shook the man's beaten body and the rapid rate that his sliced chest rose marginally with ineffective breaths. Rick knew from seeing enough crime scenes over his career with the Sheriff's department that once blood had left the body and spilt on the floor it was deceptive, sometimes relatively harmless amounts seeming impossibly large, but Rick couldn't help but this there was no way this was the case with the puddle at Daryl's knees, the edges growing outward slowly with each drip from ruined flesh. He wondered how long it would take Daryl to lose enough blood to fall unconsciousness, and with a prang of guilt found himself wishing it would just come quickly for his friend whose groggy eyes were flailing in confusion and pain, never settling on one thing long enough to focus. Rick could see Daryl fighting against gravity, desperate to keep himself upright and not give in to the overwhelming tiredness that just had to be closing in on him.
Rick barely registered a barking cough of laughter from above when he felt a sudden gust of air send dirt into his eyes as Daryl's legs finally gave up their last bit of strength and he came crashing to the ground from his knees. Rick winced as Daryl's right cheek collided heavily with the floor first, the hunter not even having the energy to put his arms out to soften the landing. As the air settled, tiny puffs of dust continued to rise with every one of Daryl's quick, shallow breaths. His face remained pressed heavily into the ground for a few moments until Gareth buried one foot underneath Daryl's hip and with one quick movement upwards rolled the hunter onto his back. He made no noise.
Daryl's vision struggled to focus when his view was flipped, it taking it a moment longer than he was comfortable with for his mind to catch up to what had just happened. He stared straight up into the cloudless blue sky, squinting as the sun beat down on him. From the look of the Sun's position he reckoned they had only been out of their train car prison for around two hours, but, Jesus, it felt like so much longer to him. It had probably only been a couple of minutes since he'd felt the blade slice through his wrists, but even that had felt like a lifetime. He wondered how long it would take for him to fall into oblivion. Not just unconsciousness, but true oblivion, where the darkness was so deep than nothing would ever reach him again. He didn't think it would be long. Despite white hot pain that pulsated everywhere on his body, everywhere, the cold had already started to creep over him, enveloping him in a strange calmness that was so at odds with the thoughts of mortality sporadically racing through his head. He never thought he would be scared of dying again, not after he had become so accustomed to the thought as a boy, but he couldn't deny the fear bubbling away in the pit of his stomach.
He hopes he gives them all food poisoning. With any luck it will kill them.
Was he really dying? He was pretty sure he was, almost certain in fact, but it wouldn't be the first time his mind had been so clouded in agony or panic that it had thought that. Through the years there had been plenty of times where, during or after one of his father's rages, he had found himself laying on their dirty floor fighting the urge of allowing himself to pass out, utterly terrified that he wouldn't be able to open his eyes ever again. He remembered one time, when he'd been caught trying to steal one of his father's cigarettes, that the man had repeatedly held his head under water, only allowing him up for the time it took to bring in half a breath. His lungs had screamed as they had slowly filled with water, the breath in his small lungs quickly running out. As the water surrounding him had begun to blur around the edges, black spots floating all around his vision, he had accepted that the blind panic he felt then was the last thing he would ever feel and that when he shut his eyes it would finally be the end of his pathetic existence. He'd woken up spluttering on the floor of the bathroom, his clothes and hair still sodden, and a bruise the size of a man's handprint forming between his shoulder blades.
This time it felt different.
God, he was so tired.
Daryl's heavy eyelids closed and he took a few deep breaths to calm his panicking mind. Pulses of agony radiated to so many places on his body that he couldn't even tell you where he hurt anymore. Finally, his brain started firing off pictures he had been waiting for, the rare flashes of good he had encountered in his life. Smiles, laughter, bright flashes of eyes full of life, comfortable silences and a feeling of safety; they all flickered through his head like the films he had watched with his mother. But, it was only when faces started mixing themselves in-between the snippets of memories, and the details came into focus, that Daryl realised it wasn't the same show-reel his mind had shown him all those times before, when it was his father it was protecting him against. No, these faces belonged to his new family, the one lined up like prisoners of war on one side of him.
Daryl couldn't help the small smile working its way to his lips as a momentary warmth flooded his quickly-cooling limbs. His mind continued to swim in memories of his friends, and he laughed a little despite himself, only a rasping exhale of gas audible to the others. He really must be the only person to have more to lose now the world had ended.
With a wave of regret and a sideways glance at them all, he wished he could have done more to save his acquired family. It panicked him more than he would ever care to admit, more than anything had before, that after he died that psycho would turn on another of his family. He'd tried to take as much as he could from the man, hoping that Rick would have time to find a way out, but it hadn't happened. Not that he blamed Rick, he would never do that, but he'd just wanted to do his part and give them a chance. Still, Daryl had to try and hold onto the comfort that the time Gareth spent of him was time he hadn't spent focussing on the rest of his family. That will have to do, he guessed. He was sure, as sure as anything, that Rick would still manage to work something out and get the rest of them out of this. Hell, Daryl would never bet against that man when it came to protecting that group. He'd never bet against him, full stop. Despite his mistakes, Rick had shown Daryl countless times he was worthy of following to the end.
Maybe, even dying, even dead, Daryl could still buy them some more time. He just needed to make Rick understand.
He just wanted it to be over now.
"You could have made this so much easier, Ringleader. Now look at him, suffering. It's quite pathetic really. "
Rick balked at Gareth's taunting words floating above him.
At the mention of the word pathetic Rick saw the last of Daryl's fight flare in his eyes, a resolve and a resilience shining, one that didn't have a right to be there, not after everything that just happened. He saw Daryl glance over at Carl, at Michonne, at Glenn and Maggie. He saw each of them draw back their own sadness upon looking at the same look he had seen, each of them feeding on the man's unbelievable strength. They reacted in their own way; Jaws clenching, hands balling into fists muscles tensing. Each of them realising that if the man could stay strong after enduring so much, then so could they. Rick smiled, despite himself. Daryl always had that knack of rallying the troops when it seems like they were down and out. When the going had got tough, which it had at times, everyone instinctively seemed to take his lead and draw from his unrelenting courage, his ability to get a job done without a complaint no matter how dirty it made his hands. It was why they had gotten out of so many close calls intact, especially that winter on the move after the farm. It was where Daryl cemented himself as an invaluable piece of their puzzle. It was why every single one of their core group owed their life to the hunter a number of times over. It was why he had made the best lieutenant to Rick's leadership. In his own way, Daryl had kept them all together even when Rick couldn't.
But then Rick saw it.
He saw the moment Daryl had nothing left to give.
As Daryl finally pulled his head to the side, away from the other's prying eyes, Rick saw a weakness he would have never believed could be there had he not witnessed it himself. With both of them on the same level, no more than a metre away from each other's faces, Rick could not deny the hopelessness that played so openly in his friend's icy blue eyes. Everything that Rick had ever known of Daryl was shattering. His strength, his fight, his goddamn stubbornness. It was all draining from him almost as quickly as the blood seeping into the ground beneath him in an ever-increasing puddle. Rick's world tilted as he finally accepted the awful truth; Daryl was dying in front of him and there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it.
He'd failed him. After all the times Daryl had saved him and his family, all those times the man had put their life of them before his own, and Rick couldn't repay the favour.
Daryl was dying. He was in pain. Rick knew the man was vulnerable beyond comprehension for someone so strong and that is not how he felt comfortable being.
Daryl's eyes locked onto Ricks one last time, the blue that had burnt so brightly in the past now dull, as if the lights behind the eyes were slowly dimming as the brain shut down. Rick could read Daryl like a book, having had to learn how to communicate with a man who only used words when absolutely necessary without them. They had both become so used to one another that they barely even needed to look at each other and they knew what the other was thinking or asking. Right now, Rick knew what Daryl was asking of him. He knew that the man had accepted his death already, had probably accepted it the moment he was singled out from the group in the train car, but Rick also understood that the man wanted him to bestow one last duty and protect his family. He knew Daryl wanted the only strip of dignity and control over his own demise that was possible now.
He nodded his head slowly, and saw the moment Daryl's tensed body relaxed a little with a sigh.
Rick swallowed, his mouth suddenly sandpaper dry.
"Kill him."
A hush fell as the words left his mouth. A silence that was loud to Rick that it made him wince.
"Kill him. Put a bullet in his brain. Now. Kill him now."
Gareth's head tilted in curiosity as he started to understand what was being said, his eyes lighting in something akin of victory.
"And why is that?"
Not taking his eyes from Daryl, Rick forced the words out of his reluctant mouth. "I choose him."
"Ri..." He was pretty sure that was Glenn trying to stop the events unfolding in front of him, but he reacted quickly to cut him off, having to get this finished before he changed his mind. Before he went back on his silent promise to his brother.
"Kill him. I choose him. You can...you can... have him."
Gareth's eyes flick from Rick to Daryl, seeing a faraway look full of unabridged pain and all-encompassing shame in both sets of eyes. The familiar smile of a man with an arguable hold on his sanity played over his lips. "We can have him? I don't quite understand."
Rick glared at the man towering above them, suddenly hesitant now to put the final nail in Daryl's figurative coffin. Not that the man would ever be given the dignity of being allowed to rest in one of those now, not even a makeshift one like the others they had lost.
"You can..."
"Dad!"
Carl's sudden shout of confused desperation caused Rick's heart to leap into his throat, constricting his already failing airway.
"Say it!" Gareth's voice boomed into the stagnant summer air.
"I choose him as our sacrifice. I should have chose him all along." The words rushed themselves past lips, Rick instantly wishing he could take them back. An overwhelming weight of grief and guilt settled themselves heavily on Rick's battle-worn shoulders with a sureness that he was sure he would never fully be able to shake off.
It didn't matter that Rick saw the last remaining tension leave Daryl's body, his face relaxing into an almost peaceful expression, the hunter's normally serious eyes losing their intensity. All that mattered was the Rick has doomed him. He had from the second he showed Daryl to be one of his weaknesses.
"Oh, goody. I have worked up quite the appetite!" Gareth crowed as he walked to one of his henchman and held his hand out. After a small amount of fumbling the stocky man placed a distinctive revolver in Gareth's waiting palm. As the Terminus leader inspected the chambers to be sure it was loaded, anger welled up in Rick and his fingernails ails dug painfully into the ground.
It was his silver Colt Python.
He wanted to scream and rant at whoever it was in the universe that obviously hated him so fucking much.
As Gareth continued his brief inspection, Rick didn't miss how Daryl's eyes flicked over his shoulder, and how he frowned before a ghost of a smile played on his lips. He saw how Daryl closed his eyes and shook his head as if to clear it, and then look purposefully back to the same place, eyes misting with something Rick couldn't explain. Puzzled, Rick glanced back over his own shoulder and saw nothing but the building behind him. It made him wonder what, or maybe who, the man could see through his dying brain. Maybe it was Merle, although Rick hoped not. He'd hope Daryl would have something more as a welcoming party to death. Maybe others that they had lost were there as well. Maybe Lori was there. Maybe Hershel. Maybe they had Judith too. Rick hoped so, his heart aching at the thought.
Gareth finally took the steps forward and pointed Rick's gun at Daryl. Rick vaguely noticed Maggie turning her face away, Glenn putting a comforting hand on her hair as the young man fixed his gaze on Daryl's broken body. He saw, with a pang of worry, Carl's face shut down like it had done far too often the past two years, a cold mask of a child of these horrific times slipping into place. He also saw Michonne's eyes drop to the dust under her knees, hands settling calming in her lap as she breathed deeply. Rick's eyes roamed back to Daryl's face and he saw the man breathe even deeper and let out a sigh as if all the troubles of the world had just been fixed. With his eyes closed and his face relaxed like that the man looked almost...serene. Rick was even sure there was a hint of a smile.
Gareth reached the pool of blood that surrounded Daryl now, the one that had now reached Rick's fingertips. Using his foot to draw a circle in the liquid Gareth laughed. It was a bitterly awful sound.
"I guess we can call him a kosher meal."
The gun was raised and aimed for the dying man's head. The safety was switched off and the hammer cocked with an ominous 'click'.
Rick took one final look at Daryl, trying to imprint the unusual and normally unseen look of peace on his friend's face, before he closed his own eyes, shielding them from the moment of unfair, unnecessary and irreversible tragedy that was about to happen.
A flock of crows shot up into the sky from a nearby tree as a gunshot rang out.
Author Note: I know this chapter hasn't moved the story alone much - but gosh darn it if I don't want to draw out the agony for you all. :)