Life after the dead
Chapter 25
It wasn't long till he found her. The dead had passed now, the sun had lazily started to rise, and he had feared the worst. She was rash and stupid and it was only a matter of time till she finally got herself killed. The way she fought the walkers, head first and with such anger... Even the way she protected him, she had simply siphoned him away from the danger by ripping open his stitches, incapacitating him through pain. It was in insane. She was feral and reckless, but he had hoped she'd be alright.
It had taken him longer than he'd care to admit to get himself together. The pain had blinded him for a while and he may have even passed out at some point. He didn't really know. He managed to sneak by the few stragglers in the streets, having clutched a dirty pillowcase to his wound, and bound it with a scrap of sheet to keep it in place, stopping the bleed, and after that he simply followed the bodies. His movements were slow and unsteady but he got there in the end, finding nothing but slain dead inside, he squeezed through an opening that had already been forced by walkers in a way so graceless it left slabs of skin stuck to the wood. The hallway was still darkened by early day and a smell of rot and death entered his nostrils. Walkers lay splattered about and torn open. A broken window testified to the possible escape of the dead that survived Gwen. He checked the rooms finding one of them barred.
He pounded on it a few times, calling out to her, and it took her a few moments to reply. He heard a shifting inside and as the door opened he looked right into her tired eyes. He scanned the room, finding the husk of one of the children in the corner, his skin a sickly white with a knife wound in the side of his head, at an odd angle. It chilled his skin, making him break out into goosebumps. It was unnatural, seeing kids as walkers. Gwen nodded at him once, before hobbling her way back to the corner where she had sat before.
A scarf was tied around her thigh, tight and soaked with blood. He eyed it intently, catching her green orbs, edging her to explain herself, her state and her earlier actions. Lids covered her irises as she turned to the boy in the corner, mourning her having to take his unlife. She may have been tough but having to take care of someone you knew? That was rough. He still found their faces in his dreams sometimes, and other days they would come to him while he was still awake. He wanted to ask her if she was okay, but before that, he needed to know why her leg was bleeding.
She then smiled at him briefly, and he just knew. His legs wanted to give weigh, crashing him onto his ass, draining the energy from his muscles, but he froze them in place, waiting for her to say it.
"Got bit"
Nodding her head and scrunching up her face in an odd smile, she tried to lighten his heart, having the opposite effect. Daryl drew in a breath, pressing his lips together to keep him from making a sound he shifted his weight from his right to his left leg, and back again at least trice. He folded his arms and released the knot before pulling at his hair. His body was going into overdrive, and he had barely any control over his body left. It took every ounce he could muster to keep himself from screaming at her.
"Why?"
He didn't need to know how, because if she got bit, it had to have been a choice, or at least the result of a calculated risk. She had survived for too long to be caught off guard by a random walker. It just wouldn't happen! So why was she going to die?!
"Connor got bit, the kids wouldn't have gone without him. Besides...I couldn't let him turn on his own" she said matter of factly, as if that was the only choice she could have made and Daryl had no actual reason to be upset. At this point he was seething with anger. She just sat there, cool as is could be as blood dripped from her thigh and poison ran a course through her veins slowly turning her into an undead disgusting liability that he was going to have to put down!
"And you couldn't have stabbed his brain before he completely turned!" Daryl threw, not even asking a question. His hand found his ribs who had started to groan at the sudden rush of blood, and pressed firmly against it. From under his knotted brow he watched Gwen's features harden. Her lips parted and she started throwing bile his way.
"Suck my dick, Daryl! You wouldn't have killed that kid while he was still breathing either, so get bent!"
Daryl would have laughed at her choice of words had he not already been fuming with their content. He couldn't even say anything to her, his throat had closed up with anger and it took every fibre of his being not to shake her like a rag doll. He was just looking at her now. He could understand her need to be attacked by the child, so she would have no other choice but to kill him, but to let him get as far as to let him sink his teeth into her flesh?! How did he wind up near her thigh anyway? Was she doing? cradling his head, ruffling his hair?! The turn must have happened like lightning if she had no time to react.
Gwen's features softened again and a tired sigh escaped her throat. "Look, sorry. But could you do me a solid? I left my guns at home, so could you knife me? I know I'm like super hot and all, but even I can't pull off rotting flesh" she muttered, making comical facial expressions to add to her fading jokes, trying to make it easier on him. "I mean, you're gonna be fine right? Like rest a few days and then head up to the-"
Daryl snapped.
You can't just opt out! That kid dying is not more important that you staying alive! That's what we do now! We survive! You told me that we gave people time now, but there are still people that need us. That need you. You have a family now, you owe them to stay alive! He screamed at her in his head, his voice itching with gruff as he prepared the words. This self-sacrificial bullshit had to stop!
"You have family now" he managed to utter, his voice failing to continue his rant. Gwen hicked out a short burst of laughter, her hands clawing at her hair, pushing it back so she could look at him properly. "You can't just opt out whenever you want. People need you now" Daryl bit. By people he mainly meant himself. He couldn't bare to have another loss carved onto his heart, there simply wasn't any room left anymore. "You can't just die!"
"You don't have to die, to be dead" Gwen said sharply, her eyes piercing his with stunning accuracy, making his heart stop for a hot second.
Gwen softened then, regretting her words. "I always wanted to have a family" she mumbled, absently reaching for that mark on her chest. "I wasn't born into one, and I always thought I'd have my own. I tried to have my own" he nails traced one of the three marks, and it was only then that Daryl had started to understand. The cuts had been too strait and precise to be of actual combat. She had made them herself, a remembrance of loss.
Daryl walked over and sat down next to her, pulling up his legs to his chest and leaning on them, gesturing at her to continue. There wasn't any point to being angry with her, she wouldn't know how to deal with it and he knew from previous experience that it did not make him feel better in the slightest.
Gwen eyed her hands and rang her fingers as she told him the story behind the scars. After she left the orphanage she wanted to find a family of her own, but she just couldn't connect with anyone, and so she thought to start a family herself. To have a baby, a little person of her own to care for.
"Getting pregnant was the easy part, staying that way however..."
Daryl nodded and muttered a "yeah" under his breath just to let her know that he was still listening. After her first miscarriage she tried two more times but it never lasted more than a few weeks. It was funny in a way. Daryl thought back to his dream, where she had stood next to him and held her stomach proudly. It made that situation even more surreal, and it seemed like his subconscious dangled both their desires out in front of them.
She had gone to see a doctor at a free clinic and with a little persuasion he did a few tests on her. Her Uterus had some kind of growths in them, which caused her to reject any egg that attempted to settle in her womb. "Doc gave me a 5% chance" she said solemnly, her nail following the lines of her scars.
"Ye'd make a good mom" Daryl muttered, biting his nail.
Gwen started to glow a little, her lips parting to make way for a smile. "Nah, but I'd sure as heck try to be" she mumbled, leaning up against him a little, her hand finding the blood on her thigh. Daryl smiled a little, that was exactly what would make her a good mom. She'd try her best and protect her kid with everything she'd have.
He couldn't blame her for staying with the kid, and offering him some comfort as he passed away. He would have probably stayed as well. The mere concept of kids tugged at his heartstrings and made him a weaker man. If he had found Sophia after she had turned, he couldn't say for sure whether or not he would have killed her. He would have been incapacitated by shock and sure disbelief.
He eyed the boy in the corner of the room. He hadn't been Gwen's to save, but she had. Till his final breath, she had sat with him and made sure that he wasn't alone, like she had been. He himself had always said that if he were to get bit that he'd want someone to blow his brains out, because that seemed like the best option, but he knew better now. He'd rather sit with Gwen for a few more minutes before he was taken. It was selfish, knowing that he might hurt her after he'd turned, but he just wanted to be next to her, be with her. Just for a little bit longer.
He looked over to the girl next to him, knowing full well what was ahead of them. His callused and partially bandaged hand reached over and wiped her brow, checking her temperature. She had a slight fever, but nothing as raging as what would follow. Her blood would boil and burn her up and she would become delirious in her fever. She was still okay now.
Gwen offered him a tired smile and leaned into his hand, her hair releasing itself from her shoulder, gently tickling his skin. She closed her eyes and sighed tenderly. Daryl's chest closed up a little, due to injury or emotion he didn't know. He cleared his throat, prompting her to open her green eyes again, staring at him expectantly.
"You survived once right? What makes this time different?" he tried, causing her to knot her brow in question for a moment before she broke out a smile again, followed by a brief hyena laugh. She had survived the bite of a ghoul once, but that had been a fluke or a stroke of luck a least, it was doubtful to happen again.
"It sucks that I have to die, you've made me feel so alive, rabbitman" she said with a toothy smile, bringing around her fist and knocking him against his shoulder, before she stopped and looked at him in a way he had never seen before. There was something in her eyes that he could not explain. Maybe it was her mixture of emotions or maybe it was his, but he had never felt more bare and exposed in his life. She made some sort of nod with her head, which puzzled him, but he copied it nonetheless.
She brightened even further and before he knew what was happening her smile came towards him. Gently and slowly her hand found his stubbled jaw, soothing the busted nerve endings she found there, one of her fingers tracing his earlobe for a moment, spreading an unfamiliar warmth over his skin. Then he could feel her breath against his lips. Her eyes lingered in front of his at a slight angle, and while keeping those slivers of green fixated on him, her eyes coveighed such intensity that he hardly noticed her lips parting ever so slightly. He froze as they brushed up against, locked with his, and drew him into a soft kiss. The warmth of her mouth bled into his and slowly softened his callused tension.
She gently pulled at his lower lip, her thumb actively tracing his jaw. A sweet sound escaped her as she pulled back, finding Daryl unreceptive and stunned under her touch. Distancing herself slightly, Gwen took to observing him, looking at him, searching for a reaction. And as she studied him, her squinted green eyes darted over his face, before finally settling on her own feet, defeated by his expression. "You okay?" she asked then as worry stretched over her features.
The breath he was holding came out in short taps, brushing past his lips with a tingle, not unlike the one she had left there. He jutted his chin forward, soothing his lungs and guiding them to take in air again and normalise his breathing. His mind was raging with thoughts he couldn't even keep track of, but luckily for him, his body had taken over and taken charge of the situation. His now slick lips parted, and his cords danced a phrase.
"Daryl Dixon" he called, his pitch sounding surprisingly normal under the circumstances. He had hated the nickname she had given him, it kept reminding him of the hunters and how he felt back then, the loss that homed in his heart, and how stupid he had been. Gwen glinted at him and turned her head to the side, slightly confused by what he had answered her with, but she seemed to understand a moment later.
Daryl's eyes were fixated on her lips, and especially on the little glimmer that was now gracing her lower lip. They stretched and unveiled a smile before he spoke. "Daryl Dixon" she repeated, and as she rang her name, he was sure he had never heard anything more heart warming. He had never been very proud of his name, nor of his family, but she had said it as if it was something wholesome, and good.
"Gwen Twyler" she introduced herself. They had exchanged their full names, not that it really mattered now. There weren't enough people to have need for last names to keep them apart. Not anymore. But somehow, he felt better knowing it, as if she allowed him to know her. He wondered how she felt saying that, telling him, and if he would trigger the same feelings from her as he said her name. How would she feel?
How did she feel after that kiss? Why did she kiss him? As thanks? As comfort? Should he have kissed her back? He didn't know. He was stunned and unsure and simply overtaken as he came down and realised their situation. Daryl called out her name, but he couldn't manage the warmth that she had mustered, instead it was cold and scared and she could tell and offered him a brief smile. "It's okay Daryl."
He wanted to say something clever, redirect the attention and the care her way. God she was the one that was bit by a walker and still the focuss was on him! She was making sure he was alright and he was getting sick of it. Daryl wanted to take care of her, making her okay again. His eyes trailed down to the mark on her leg and the blood that oozed through the scarf and back up to her sad smile and all too knowing eyes.
He wasn't having it, she wasn't going to kick the bucket, least of all in this dump!
"Get your shit, we're going."