This is traumatised Daryl at his best. because he's not going to just 'get over it', now, is he? Take this as your warning. Angsty, nasty, nasty stuff.


It was late in the evening when Rick found Daryl sat at the table in the old houses kitchen, a bottle of Southern Comfort in his hand.

He'd clearly already been drinking some so Rick guided him through to sit with the others, didn't want him to be sat alone drinking.

Michonne, who was sat near to Daryl tapped his arm and motioned for the bottle and the hunter passed it across to her. She took a swig before passing it to Maggie. It passed round to the others, Carl just taking a sniff and passing it to his Father before it was returned to Daryl.

He cradled the bottle slightly when it was returned to him, not keen to share it again. Because he needed it. To help him get to a state of numbness. Where nothing mattered any more.

Where nothing could hurt him. And he wasn't there yet.

And he wouldn't get there either. Couldn't.

He felt his resolve start to break. A whimper, pathetic even to his own alcohol sloshed mind, escaped his lips before he could stop it and the sob was escaping his chest, making it's way up his throat before he could stop it. And it forced it's way out of him.

Deafening in the silent room as he was overwhelmed by everything. The sobs wouldn't stop and it froze the room. It wasn't until that initial outburst was over that he calmed a little, his face a mess of tears and snot and sweat mixed together with the alcohol that escaped his lips with his own spit.

He didn't care. He was far beyond caring.

It was Rick who tried. Asked how Daryl ended up locked in a cell in the first place, how they left him to The Governor and Daryl didn't know. Couldn't understand how it had happened.

Maybe he'd known once. Maybe it had been his own fault and he felt too stupid to admit so he'd blocked it out. Whatever reason, he couldn't tell them.

But he started to recount exactly what had happened afterwards.

He'd take gulps of the whiskey, it helped him along with tales that he would be too ashamed to recount sober.

He started with the room that made him stay in at first, when The Governor waited for them to come after him. And when they realised that the group had fled, without Daryl, The Governor looked at him differently.

Told them how much he'd been hurt that first time. How he'd bled.

In his right mind, Daryl would never have said such things. Not to any of them. Especially not in front of Carl. But he wasn't in his right mind and he couldn't be, not with all this on him.

Rick realised the man's need to make them understand, so they could empathise with him. As much as he wanted to get the others to leave, to spare Daryl's humiliation and his regret, he thought they needed to hear it and walking out on Daryl during this would damage him, shame him more.

Once he started, he couldn't stop.

Told them The Governor would often come to his room, every few nights at first to fuck him. And he'd bleed every time.

He told them about the tents and how he was moved out when the building got too full.

How The Governor would often send for him and get one of his men to take him to The Governor's room. He remembered a day when The Governor had been particularly cruel, wanting Daryl to know his place, before he'd grown some weird attachment to him.

He'd sent him back outside to his tent naked.

He knew blood stained his legs and he wondered how worthwhile it would be trying to keep himself covered as he was lead out to his tent and left there, just his sleeping bag to keep him warm during the night.

But a guard clearly took pity, came in and threw an extra blanket over him. It helped.

He still shivered through the night, still ached, but it took the edge off.

But he never saw that guard again.

And there was another after that.

Who frequently started to take Daryl back and forth to The Governor.

Daryl was The Governor's property, everyone knew that. But this man had other ideas.

He started out groping him on the way to the room.

Just brief touches that sent shivers over Daryl's body, sickness coiling in his stomach.

And then he pushed it further.

Pushed a finger or two inside of him. He made him bleed, his abused body wrecked and it didn't take much for it to be torn apart again.

When he took him back after The Governor was done, he climbed into the tent with him. Pushed his way inside of Daryl and came quickly and with vicious thrusts.

And when he pulled out, stepped outside, he was met with The Governor's gun pointed towards him. He didn't get a chance to speak before his body was left on the ground.

He was an example to them all.

The Governor cleaned him up after that. Thoroughly.

It hurt so much he thought he'd pass out from the pain. And after that, The Governor started marking him.

And it was then that Michonne dropped down beside him. Touched his arm gently.

He hadn't said as much as he thought he had.

His mind not clear enough to distinguish what he was saying and what he was thinking. It came out as garbled sentences that made no real sense to the others, not after a while.

But they got enough from them, knew he'd faced some horrors while he'd been separated from them.

Could understand better why he was so afraid.

He still looked a mess, and she wiped her hand gently under his eye, one and then the other, removing his tears and she pulled him down towards her, let his head rest in her lap as his body tucked up close to her as possible. She soothed him gently, like she might a child, and he started to calm in her embrace.

Sleep didn't take long to wash over him. His exhaustion and the alcohol making sleep impossible to fight.

Once Daryl had drifted off, Carl was the first to get up and leave. Rick called out after him but the boy continued without a word.

"That was a bit intense," Maggie said, tears still in her eyes.

"It'll help him," Michonne said, confidently.

"We should move on tomorrow. Find a new place." Rick said. "I'll look over the maps in the morning, see if there's any places that look good."

The sound of footsteps heading there way indicated Carl's return. He smiled slightly to ease his Father's worried look he threw his way, before Carl draped Daryl's blanket he'd retrieved from his bed over the sleeping man's form.

"Thanks Carl," Michonne said, tucking it gently around him. Carl moved round and sat between beside his father, so that he was closer to Daryl and Michonne.

Rick gave Maggie a look before smiling to her. "You're not staying over there by yourself are you?"

She smiled before moving across the room and tucking in close beside Rick.

They were all that each of them had.

And they were determind to hang on to one another. For as long as they could.