Hey, everyone!
Not much to say here, there's a huge analysis in the end of the chapter :)
You know I would recommend you go back and re-read the previous chapters but I doubt you will after all this angst :)
I'm always grateful to Peta2 who jumps bravely between you and my errors :) Poor you and every kind of crazy you have to read!
maria: Thank you for the review :) Problem is that this is my writing style, it's the way I write even in my native language, not just English. I'm not suggesting I have found the balance, probably not, but vocabulary is my soft spot. Maybe it's better managed when I follow a character's thoughts, because metaphors and descriptions are getting the better of me. Oh, well, practice makes perfect, I'm still working on that :)
The Walking Dead belong to Robert Kirkman and AMC. No copyright infringement intended.
Enjoy!
Her chest jolted twice and her neck stretched backwards.
He squeezed the hand he had ensnared between his palm and his collarbone and cool fingers curled around his thumb, grazing the coarse skin as her entire body stirred and jerked.
Her head lolled to the side and she wheezed painfully, releasing a shrill, whistling sound.
No one breathed in this unlikely assembly of people around her.
"Rick, no…" The barely audible whisper evanesced in the air, as Maggie's stormy gaze skimmed back and forth between the two men, one slowly removing the safety of his gun, the other struggling to steady a quavering arm.
Daryl stooped over and croaked her name, almost suffocating to death himself at the sight of her still unblinking, blurry gaze when her eyes shut hermetically and she gasped for air, her torso wriggling on the ground.
Glenn propped her up immediately to ease her agony, resting her against his chest as Daryl just watched blankly, the wheels in his brain twirling override, yet failing to reconcile with the mortifying transition from hell to heaven in a split second.
Maggie staggered her way next to them and collapsed, throwing up, a very distressed Glenn trying to hold Carol upright and pat Maggie's back, peering over at a thunderstruck Daryl. He sighed, silently wished he was an octopus to be able to tend them all at once and still have a spare tentacle to rub on his forehead. It was unbeknownst for the members of their group to lose their composure collectively at once. Rick's knees buckled and he dropped on all fours on the slippery soil. At least Carl was behaving maturely again, scooted closer and lightly caressed Carol's knee.
Daryl fell silent, gawking at her with utter incredulity and denial, shaking his head, red-rimmed eyes skittering inquisitively all over her face. The gun discarded next to him, his free arm shuddering laxly by his side. If he had breathed or not since the moment Carol started thrashing on the ground, he had no idea.
She stared back at him in shock, disoriented and confused, still clutching his finger, panting labored, hissing breaths. Her first impulse was to flinch as she barely recognized the man who scanned her diligently, but something in his darkened eyes hurtled a familiar warmth in her heart despite the distorted mask of horror and pain obfuscating his features.
He had to chant it internally over and over, like a gospel, with religious deference and persistence that the set of blue eyes fixed on him bore no resemblance to the milky fogginess of a walker's vanquished humanity. It wasn't until she blinked for the umpteenth time that he groaned loudly his inability to vent all the pent up feelings tucked in his chest. There was no possible escape route for the dread tamped down there, towering inside him like a colossal tsunami raring to devour the last vestiges of life and sanity slithering deep in his chest. But every time her eyes closed only to flutter open again he could clearly distinguish the bright glow of vitality reviving inside them.
Daryl lurched forward to scoop her out of Glenn's embrace. "Let her breathe, let her breathe," Glenn protested but he yanked his hand away, nothing sturdy enough to block his way. He wormed his arm between them and forcefully excavated a barely conscious Carol out of Glenn's slouched body and clumsily maneuvered to perch her in his arms single-handed as his right hand was uselessly entangled in a clutter of slipshod fingers woven together in an unbreakable grip.
He tumbled down on his butt; the slushy sound of the colliding soft mire not bothering him anymore. "You ok?" he rasped, panting for air.
"She probably can't speak right now. Her throat must be killing her," Rick croaked, still on the ground, fighting to compose himself as Maggie shuffled to Glenn to mewl her alleviation in his chest.
"But she's gonna be fine?"
Michonne plucked her katana out of the Governor's eye socket and strayed a bit to behead a few approaching walkers. Carl was prompted into action immediately; back to behaving like a grown man, he was the first person surrounding Carol to aggregate his self-control together, running closer to Michonne as he muzzled the silencer on his firearm.
Rick's gaze tagged along his son but he addressed Daryl, shrugging, offering all the knowledge he had earned as a former sheriff. "Attempted strangulation. Sore throat and hoarseness for sure for a few days. I bet she has a horrible headache right now and her ears are ringing. And we have to wait; we don't know how long her brain was without oxygen…"
Daryl shot him a murderous look. "Bullshit," he grumbled and shifted his attention back to Carol. "You're fine, ain't you?"
Droplets of salty tears welled up to shake off the dryness, progressively dripping the intrinsic moisture back in her misty eyes, rinsing away the brittle glossiness of perishing. She couldn't speak but she could see him even through a haze and she could hear him despite the thunderous buzzing in her ears, so she mustered a ghostly smile to supplant her inability to utter anything.
"You hear me?"
She nodded.
"You have a headache? You feel shit?"
Carol wanted to laugh at the question. Daryl Dixon was probably the last man walking on earth that would feel reassured with an affirmative response. Instead, she winced in pain as a thousand needles punctuated her throat and she just nodded once more, then closed her eyes and leaned into him.
"We better get moving. Walkers are gathering." Prodded back to reality by Michonne's alarming tone, everyone was up and ready to fight in a flash, checking the chambers of their weapons, unsheathing their knives, hewing a strict formation around Daryl and Carol.
"Say something," he ordered sternly, shaking her violently in his arms.
"Ouch," Carol grunted and he broke an ear to ear grin to everyone around them.
"She's fine. I'm taking her to the old man," he announced emphatically, as he scrambled up to his feet at once, lifting her along.
Rick was in front of him in a split second, blocking his way. "Let me carry her to the cars," he muttered.
Accepting the alleged challenge immediately, Daryl closed the space between them, cradled Carol the only barrier impending a brutal collision of two well built chests. "Why? So you can put a bullet in her brain?" he growled, snuggling her closer.
"Let's get moving, guys!" Glenn yelled.
"Daryl, if she has any cracked ribs, you're probably hurting her right now." Not that there was any point in trying to speak some sense into him at that moment, deep down Rick knew he was just wasting his time at best, positioning his forehead in a bullet range once again at worst.
"No," Daryl snarled, marching to the cars, the venomous pang in his voice stuffing all the leeway for further debate.
Thankfully, the cars were parked less than a twenty-minute walk away, a distance covered relatively smoothly and without excessive trouble.
When he climbed into the back seat of Glenn's pick-up, ignoring Rick calling his name and tugged Carol tightly against him, he sagged on the bench heaving, labored breaths from physical and emotional exhaustion sliding through his lips. None of it mattered, though, the moment he locked eyes with her droopy ones and the corners of her mouth quirked upwards.
"Stay with me, ok?" he croaked, scraping away a muddy smear from her cheekbone. Carol wrinkled her nose at the contact and he chuckled, startling them both.
Glenn and Maggie hopped in right behind them, both of them still looking pretty shaken. Maggie was curled by his side, nuzzling in his shoulder. "I love you," she stated plainly in her husband's neck, audibly enough for everyone to hear and Daryl's gaze darted back to Carol who was out cold again; despite fighting it, he couldn't help but wonder how something so bold and exposing was so easy for these two when it was so inconceivably difficult for him. When Glenn lifted his hand to stroke Maggie and the truck bumped along over the rocky terrain, he couldn't even muster the courage to scold him.
Daryl kept his eyes transfixed out of the window for the biggest part of the ride after that, registering nothing but a specter of blurry, shapeless landscapes coming into view and fading away, his mind a coagulated mass of nothingness as his fingertips groped the lines of her face. He had to. In desperate need to simmer down the secretion of adrenaline bolting in his veins, overwhelmingly self-conscious of the precious burden in his embrace, he simply had to hold his shit together till they returned to the prison. He had to. Then he could break something, kill something, maybe smash down a cell block to ease off some tension. Not before.
He stormed out of the cell in a flash after he laid Carol on her bunk and heard Hershel's crutches approach, marching to the kitchen purposefully with long strides, pausing every few steps to kick to hell anything in his immediate reach, cussing for all those sets of eyes he felt kindling his back, Rick close on his heels. Once out of plain sight, he leaned over the countertop panting, arms splayed.
"Daryl-"
"Just get out of here, Rick," he hissed through gritted teeth, yet not the most indolent sound to betray that the other man heeded his advice echoed in the cement walls
Their leader didn't faze, just rubbed his face, to swipe away the unforeseen chagrins that day had served them. "You know I did what I had to do, right?"
Daryl eyed the galvanized rack that bore their food provisions reeled off neatly and skillfully in various selves, no more than a few feet away from him. With a fluid motion, slopping with crude wrath and vehemence finally liberated, he hurled it on the floor, summoning every last ounce of stamina still lurking inside him. Screws shrilled as the metallic joints dismantled from the blunt of the ferocious impact, jars with salted commodities, such as sardines and pork, painstakingly stashed in there over infinite hours of cooking and preparation shattered in tiny fragments, liquids splashed all over the floor, pulverized sugar and baby formula evaporated, smoked meat thudded dully and all kinds of fruits and vegetables spurted around.
Daryl watched pathetically a lonely lemon rolling on the floor nonchalantly, only to crush in the conjunction with the wall and bounce off for a few inches, the stiff taste of sourness plundering his dry mouth. "We both did," he muttered, shuddering head to toe, nails almost digging blood from his palms.
Rick had cringed at the resounding boom of the destruction, still reverberating in the confined cement space, but had otherwise remained composed. "I would have pulled the trigger." His voice was solemn, but stripped from any sign of vigor, eyes dented.
"Me too," Daryl rumbled, still a wreck fighting against his most feral instincts, dragging his feet with great effort until the two men were standing face to face, eyeing each other evenly with a hard look spread across both their profoundly creased faces.
Rick cupped the hunters shoulder and squeezed it sternly. "We'd both do our duty," he offered, understanding and compassion radiating off him despite the unbearable encumbrance on his shoulders. "I get it. No hard feelings."
Daryl nodded just once. "I'm sorry." He knew Rick loved Carol. He knew that in retrospect, he, himself, was playing hero back there, back when everything was lost and all hope vanished. He knew Rick was the villain against his will. He knew someone had to do this part and it was the craggy path to follow. He knew someone had to execute the task and that the action would only be an emblem of valor, decency and honor. He knew Rick deserved his loyalty and respect for that; he had both. But he would have catapulted a bullet between his eyes anyway, without hesitation or further ado. They both knew. And acknowledged each other, whatsoever, steeling a bond beyond family and kin, beyond blood.
"I reckon we're fine, you and I," Rick said, still patting him encouragingly.
"Square," he nodded, yanking away, eyes inspecting the hallway, restless once again. "I'm going hunting."
Rick peered through the veil of the blatant lie immediately. It was twilight, already. No way would Daryl hunt in the dark. He just needed space and time alone, to dissolve and crumble on the ground. "When are you coming back?"
Daryl shrugged, fastening his crossbow and marched outside the prison walls without another glance, blowing away a wisp of overgrown hair blinding him and vaguely wishing that Carol's hand was there to tuck it behind his ear.
Rick was aware of the ambiguity the gesture entailed. Maybe in two hours, maybe in a week. It depended on how long it'd take for him to get a grip on his nerves and muster his equanimity and self-control to be able to face her. He would bet his chips on a week rather than hours.
She saw him the fourth morning when she stepped outside to get breakfast to whoever was on watch; she wasn't surprised. Everyone was staring at her for those few moments between crossing the corridor and immerging in the blinding daylight and she simply knew he was back. But he was still out of the fence, back turned to the prison, the heels of his hands rubbing his eyes, slouched next to Merle's grave. So, she handed the plate over to Michonne on the guard tower and walked back to the prison. When Rick touched her arm, she simply shook her head and kept walking back to the kitchen, ignoring the inquisitive looks darting at her.
He would come to them, to her, when he was ready. She didn't know where her certainty sprung from, but it was there, no doubt. It sparked the moment she opened her eyes in the cell, in the middle of the night when they were back and she knew he was gone. She remembered knowing he'd leave from the look in his eyes during the ride back. She hadn't shed a single tear during his absence, neither for her nor for him. Maggie and Carl had cried in her lap, even Rick and Glenn had wiped stray tears away when she was on her feet again, but not her. Consolation was not needed. She knew he was coming back. And she knew he loved her. Had seen it through the sheen of his tears when Glenn propped her up. Somehow she knew that when he came back, they would finally be on the same page, equal partners.
The sun had set when he entered the prison. Carol was expecting him in her cell, leaning against the wall, in the dim light of the lantern that inspected everything from the drawer in the corner through the yellow shades lapping around the figures. Somehow, she knew he was coming for her, somehow she knew he'd miraculously know where to find without seeking her; not having a clue why, she just knew.
A bitter smirk ghosted her lips when people fled the hallway like rats abandoning a ship as the clomping thump of his boots echoed, momentarily coming to a standstill outside her cell. The newcomer immigrants from Woodbury felt nothing close to comfortable around him. Daryl avoided each one of them like the plague and they regarded him like the devil incorporated. Soon their piercing gazes of irresolute agitation each time the hunter was in menacing distance would turn to dust, Carol knew that too. It was only a matter of time for people surrounding them to find out that Daryl Dixon wasn't danger, Daryl Dixon was safety.
The curtain of her doorway ascended imperceptibly, just a hesitant crack for him to peek inside and confirm that she indeed stood there and next thing she knew he had stepped in, double-checking to yank the heavy veil close securely. Not that it mattered. Carol had no idea what to expect from the impending conversation, but a hunch quivering in her chest kept shrieking that tonight no one would pay her a visit and interrupt them. Or maybe it wasn't a hunch, maybe it was Maggie's infamous determination to guard her entrance like a bulldog.
There was no acknowledgement or salutation between them. They just locked eyes, both with unfathomable expressions glistening profoundly in them and Daryl meandered nervously, before halting dead in his tracks in front of her.
He willed his hand to stop shaking and reached out to lower the scarf wrapped deftly around her neck – that, and only that would suffice for him to know she was concealing something even in the rare case scenario that he had been completely oblivious to what that was; the careful wrap of the scarf was not Carol, hers was unceremonious and casual, like her- revealing a flesh cloaked with inflammatory rashes and bruises. "That hurts?" he muttered, swallowing hard, voice thick with emotion.
She fidgeted, shifting her weight nervously and finally shrugged. "A little."
The hoarseness of her voice was unsettling and he almost winced. Almost. "Are you on meds?" he went on, keeping her gaze nonetheless.
Carol nodded. "Painkillers. For my ribs, not my neck," she clarified, clearing her throat the best she could.
"We have enough?"
"Yeah." She was in desperate hurry to change the subject. "Where have you been?"
"The woods," he murmured as he broke their unfaltering eye contact, bowing his head. Calloused fingers glided along the hem of the elegant garment around her neck. This scarf was new, she didn't possess it four days ago.
Blue gaze darted over his hands and she smiled, taking in the stark contrast of fine silk and coarse skin. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" she whispered, brushing her fingertips over his.
"Yeah," Daryl rasped, only this time his eyes had flicked up again, scorching holes on her face, his mind almost entirely ruling out the scarf.
"And delicate." Carol faced him again, almost beaming in the penumbra of the cell and he nodded, painfully swallowing the lump in his throat. "And precious," she said, receiving another nod. "Glenn and Maggie went for a run yesterday and brought it for me."
Daryl coughed. He knew she kept babbling because he was just standing there like a dumbfounded teenager, gawking at her like a creep. He would have to say something eventually, but was too distracted with their fingers, fiddling with the garment and together at once… And then there was that twinkle waltzing around in her eyes too… "I guess they had to go for a run. Nothing edible survived my little visit in the kitchen," he grumbled.
Carol shrugged. "Doesn't matter. We're gonna be fine."
"What did he tell you?" he blurted suddenly, blindsiding her, and she felt her blood crystallize, lips pressed in a firm line. Not knowing how to decipher and handle the silence, Daryl pushed it more. "You were holding your ground, didn't look afraid at all. And then he told you something and you gave up. I was there, I saw it. What did he tell you?"
Her lips twitched and her chin started to tremble. Indulging in her first impulse, she disentangled her fingers from him but he snatched them back in place, the ethereal silk pleats drifted momentarily before lacing between them again. "Doesn't matter," she mumbled, barely audibly.
Nostrils flared immediately and jaw clenched. "It was about me," he growled, her adamant reluctance to elaborate spoke volumes and the urge to run again suddenly claimed him.
It was his turn to try to jerk his hand away, the other balled into a fist, but Carol buried her nails in his flesh, the silk threads on the scar wearing out, wriggled in the middle of a steel grip. "Don't," she said, retorting the firm look and he was pinned on the spot, taken aback by the sober hardness of her tone.
As his rage simmered down and his breathing stabilized, she relaxed her hand and his fingers stroked the fabric around them, straightening the stretched threads. "We're ruining it," he whispered and glanced up to catch her face soften again.
"So what?" She smiled. "It will have its own scars. Only gonna make it all the more unique and precious."
Fresh tears welled up in his eyes, their gazes felt like gladiators crossing their swords, vying to disarm without hurting each other. So many unspoken truths soaring in the air between them. So much relief that the scarred scarf was wrapped around her and not hanging from the hook of the empty cell. "I froze," he choked and both their hands were painfully entwined together around the silk in a flash, knuckles turning white.
"I know," she said calmly, transmitting courage he willingly absorbed through the unyielding clasp, otherwise he would have slumped on the floor.
"You'd be dead if it wasn't for them." Silent tears rolled down his face and neither of them made the slightest effort to swipe them away, hands too preoccupied with holding on to each other and the scarf between them.
"I know everything. They told me." Her eyes were dry and steadfast, supporting him.
Daryl towered over her and she didn't flinch. "I froze. I've never frozen in my life." His voice wavered again, dripping guilt and repentance and agony and everything clamped inside him for far too long. "I didn't freeze when my fuckin' walker brother lunged at me."
Carol nodded.
"Forgive me," he demanded. It came out as a command but it was mere desperation that gnarled his voice.
"For what?"
"For everything." He leaned closer. "Say it," he rasped, voice husky, uneven, almost pleading. "Say you forgive me."
"Kiss me," she countered, eyeing him evenly.
He exhaled a shaky breath and cupped her neck, stroking the fading bruises of the strangling grip. He glued his lips on hers, initiating a kiss for the first time in his life, and she fisted his shirt. When her tongue swept hesitantly in his sealed mouth, his lips cracked open just a slit to allow her entrance, his own tongue meeting hers halfway. They lingered like that for a while, mouths moving, exploring and savoring each other.
She had experienced death, knew what lied beneath. Void. Darkness. Pitch black. He wasn't the one who died technically, although watching her life slipping away from him equaled dying a thousand deaths. But that over there, right now and right there wasn't death. It was life. Colorful, joyous, blissful life. Their life. Their clean slate to start over after death annihilated everything. Their time to live on with their scars and the torn scarf crammed between them.
Carol broke the kiss first. "Why did you freeze?" Knowing the answer herself wasn't enough, she needed to verify he knew it too. "Say it," she whispered. "Before it's too late."
"I couldn't… The thought that you… How…" he stuttered, suddenly stiffening and shifting his weight but made no move to bolt and Carol felt guilty for cornering him like that.
All she was searching for mirrored inside his eyes, words were trivial, a technicality naturally omitted since their silences conveyed more than any kind of confessions and pompous declarations ever would. "Because you love me," she stated softly.
"Yeah," he breathed, eyelashes fluttering, hard gaze melting.
She heaved a sigh. "Are you leaving again?"
"No."
"Never?"
"No," he moaned and then smiled imperceptibly as cool fingers shunted an unruly mop of hair away from his eyes. He had missed this.
They knew each other intrinsically, inherently, like floating souls gravitating together through eternity.
"I forgive you."
The End
Phew… This is it :) I feel like a huge weight has been removed from my shoulders!
A hug to LaurenEmilyxx, whose heart I ripped apart with these cliffhangers, but she's always so sweet.
I promised to some of you an analysis of these three so controversial chapters.
So, if you're not up for a writer's ranting (absolutely understandable, I can bore myself to death), thank you for reading up to here and I would extremely appreciate a review :) And I only need one more favorite to reach 100! Please, please, please!
If you're still with me, though… LET'S DO THIS!
The shared POVs of the three parts were the reason I couldn't limit the story to two. Part I is mostly Carol, Part II is mostly Daryl, Part III is more collective. No matter how hard I tried to divide it in two parts, Daryl's POV always spread between them and it made no sense for the pace of the story.
What I wanted to do was to write a really dark story, with a happy twist in the end, as always. I also wanted to give Carol a death scene, because that gave me the chance to delve into her mind, her back and forth, her feelings and everything she considered worth paying attention to in her final moments (Sophia, Daryl, the sky and the sun, not even a glimpse at the Governor; that was absolutely intentional). It was by far the hardest part to write, but it was a side of her I couldn't approach in any other way. The drama escalated by the fact she believed Daryl didn't love her.
Furthermore, the main objective was to give Daryl a deep psychogram, to throw him into an emotional roller coaster without warning and have him regret and re-evaluate everything when Carol is on the threshold of death. But most of all, I wanted to understand him and stress the reasons behind his behavior. The way I approach the character, Daryl is a man who acts the way he does for certain reasons and I felt the only way to make him justice was to acknowledge them. He's not weak when he freezes in front of her, he has just realized where his choices led them both and it's impossible to come to terms with that.
As much as we love him, he's a very hard man and can be really brutal sometimes even if he has the best of intentions and means well. I think this contradiction is the backbone of this character and what makes him extremely interested. In this story, that's precisely what I'm trying to explore, how all this awful behavior completely backfires on him. Both of them had to be broken to the core, especially Daryl for whom Carol's death comes as a punishment and a massive kick in the rear to prove that he has no power over their lives. Playing God and making life decisions on her behalf led him to absolute disaster even though he only wanted to protect her. He made his bargain with himself and the universe, but it wasn't just his to make.
Of course, you would never believe I would kill Carol off on these terms, right? Right?
I hope you found the finale satisfying. I know I had to grit my teeth to avoid being overly fluffy. There's nothing I wanted more than this but it wouldn't be in league with the previous chapters. It was a dark story about death and loss and grief and it couldn't turn into a picnic all of a sudden, so I tried to balance it and keep the emotion raw, yet heart-breaking.
Maybe it's not humiliating to admit that I was crying writing them clutching fingers around a scarf. There's this phrase in Part I "Death was absence, was her silk scarf hanging laxly from a hook in her cell, waiting for her to drape it casually around her neck. Death was the raking fear that the next sunrise would find him alive, sitting in her bunk, in the middle of an empty, frigid cell with the soft garment brushing his fingertips like a windblown curtain and for a fleeting moment he would snap his head peering at the doorway, hallucinating her emerging there and the last words he ever uttered – Stay the fuck away from me, that full-blown lie that ended both their last interactions- wouldn't bear the irrevocable finality that wrecked him." The fact that Daryl has Carol there, alive, with a scarf wrapped around her is the redemption I chose for him. They both have a long, rocky path to ascend to overcome the trauma they suffered, but a silk thread between them will show them the way :)
In case you have stuck around for so long and still reading this, what can I say? I love you all and I'm blown away by your devotion to this story. It wouldn't have gone far without you in the first place and I'm painfully aware of that. I can only hope you feel I'm constantly trying my best to keep posting decent chapters :) Thank you.
