Please read- Wow guys...some of your comments have really blown me away. I can't believe how nice everyone has been about this story. Some of you have said the last chapters have been your favourite and others haven't been able to sleep because of them...I love you all so much for that. I channel all of your nice things into making this story better...I'm so shocked I'm sorry. Thank you for being so kind!-Abbie
Did my heart stop with yours?
They say on average a person has around four out of body experiences, this was Daryl's. As he pushed past Carl to get to Amelia he vaguely remembered the thought process that was leading him to this current moment. His worn bloody hands began pushing down on her chest, into her ribs and out, trying to push back the life that had quickly escaped her frail body. The speed picked up as he watched his hands do the work that he had never thought he knew or understood. Hershel somewhere in the background was shouting for Rick, to bring his cuffs, afraid that she would turn at any second. The moment was on a tipping scale and none of it was in Daryl's favor.
Daryl was scared, he didn't want to see her turn but he also didn't want to let her go. He pushed harder, swearing into the cold cell, damning her, whispering her name. It was no use, she wouldn't come back to him. Amelia didn't want Daryl and his fresh anger reassembled his pain. He screamed out, so loudly that it hit the walls and bounced back into his ear drums. He couldn't be the one to put her down, not like he had Merle, she didn't deserve that.
As Rick began placing the cuffs on her tiny hands, a look of pain across his face Daryl began to feel his energy wear thin and he had never hated himself as much as he did in that moment. It was all he could do not to cry over her body. Daryl didn't cry; no he was a real man, strong, didn't need nobody. Amelia's last bit of air had wheezed from her lungs on his last compression and he lost it, he stumbled back as if her touch had electrocuted him, his eye's wide like he had been the one to have took her life.
"Daryl" Rick whispered, trying to reach out a hand.
"NO!" Carl screamed, pushing past them both and launching himself at Amelia. Rick flinched, instantly reaching for his boy who was in harms way but Carl fought back. Pushing his father he turned around and as hard as he could slammed his balled fist into the center of Amelia's heart.
"WAKE UP!" He yelled and hit out again with a fierce intensity.
As if Carl's fist held electricity Amelia's body jumped forward, her eye's rolling to the back of her head as she gasped for breath. Falling back suddenly, against the pillow with a newly restarted heart her eye's lulled back.
The room stood in silence as they watched Amelia's chest rise and fall like nothing had happened. Hershel was already there, checking her pulse and eye's trying to work out what really had happened. Poor Carl, he was stood clutching her hand like he had a little hope to hold on to now. He couldn't tear his eye's away.
Daryl stood in shock, trying to feel his body to get it to move, to run away, away from the prison somewhere far in the woods where he wouldn't have to feel this pain anymore. It was worse than being tortured, somebody was dangling Amelia's life infront of him on a strong and he couldn't reach for it.
"Hershel?" Rick asked, his eye's never leaving Daryls.
"She's back. Her heart is thumping Rick...Carl may have just saved her life" he breathed not quite believing his own eyes.
In that moment Daryl felt an intense hatred for the little boy touching Amelia. How could someone so small and naive be able to do what he couldn't? And then the painful thought of not being good enough for Amelia slid back into his hazy, troubled brain. He wanted to bawl like a baby, hit out at anyone and anything in order to stop the pain threatening to cripple him from the inside. He wanted the damn beautiful woman on the bed to open her eyes and shout at him. He needed something. He had never needed something before.
"Rick!" Came a scream from outside of the cell. "Rick we have something!" Glenn yelled as he raced into the cell carrying a small blue and white box.
"Glenn now is not the time" Rick ground out, his eye's trying to set the younger man to stone.
"Now is exactly the time. Me and Tyreese did a run to the hospital near town. We found blood Rick! It was kept in these units, it's okay cause' it has some sort of chemical that keeps it" and he pushed past him excitedly so Hershel could take a look. Tryeese then stood in the door way, awkwardly trying not to stare at the moment he had hated so much. He was covered with blood, his ripped muscles glistening with the liquid but he didn't say a word.
"We don't know her blood type. It's too risky to just put anything in to her system, she could hemorrhage, clot, anything!" Hershel breathed, wiping his sweaty forehead with an old hanky.
"No! Amelia has her blood type! She has it in her bag"
"What Carl?" Risk asked confusedly.
Carl rushed to Amelia's backpack that a few months ago he had eagerly gone through without permission and came across a small plastic wallet with all of her medical details. His trembling fingers pushed them into the old mans hands, his eyes trained to see his approval and reaction.
"Oh it's rare...O negative" and Hershel looked to Glenn with a small glimmer of hope that they would have her type. Glenn's brow furrowed as he delicately but quickly rummaged through the clear bags of blood. Pulling out two bags he pushed them towards Hershel "Oh my..."
"Wait!" Daryl hollered "You ain't putting that shit in her. How do we know it's even safe?" he growled, his eye's dark.
"It's safe" Tyreese grumbled from the back. "It has compounds in the bag to help store it. It's her only chance" and he left before anyone could argue with him, clearly uncomfortable under the rednecks gaze.
Hershel and Glenn hadn't waited for Daryls approval as they hooked her up, replacing the IV drip with her blood. "Are you okay?" Hershel asked, afraid to take in Glenns sudden bloody appearance.
"Yeah I'm fine! We didn't spend enough time in there not to be. Tyreese had my back" and he nodded to himself.
"I'm surprised Maggie let you go"
"Me too but she saw how beat up Amelia was. We wanted to help" and Glenn threw a sympathetic look towards Daryl but he refused to accept it. If he did then he would be definitely putting his feelings out there. He was comfortable with that. Hell he wasn't even comfortable with anyone touching him or being near him mind telling the world he was-involved with someone. Although Daryl should have been grateful for Glenn helping him out and he had forgotten how much the Governor had done to Maggie, the love of his life. The emotional damage of it all...
He stumbled back and rested on the wall. He needed a moment alone but he couldn't bear to leave her alone so he sat back and pretended it was just them. Sensing Hershel and Carl had began covering her up, making her comfortable for what was going to be a rough night and Rick and Glenn had left to go check on the others.
He wanted everyone to leave.
–
Maggie and Carol had given in to their womanly duties and began fretting over everyone. Dinner was cooking and they had already scrubbed the table clean of Amelia's blood but nobody sat it now. Out of respect they sat on the surroundings others.
"You think she's gonna' make it?" Maggie asked as she took her seat next to Carol. Both women looked ragged, their clothes messy and dirty and bags under their eye's to reflect the past few days.
"Who knows? She surprises us so much" Carol shrugged but quickly wincing at how heartless her words had sounded.
"You really don't like her do you?" Maggie asked, her eye brow raised in a chastising way. Maggie liked Amelia, to her the girl had more balls than anyone she had ever met and she had been nothing but honest to her and her family.
"What? Of course I like her. We've put our differences aside-I didn't mean to tell her that about Merle" and she looked down glumly into her bland soup.
"Come off it Carol. It's not that. You don't like how close her and Daryl are now. It's normal to feel pushed out-"
"I'm not jealous! Gosh I'm too old to be jealous. I'm just wary for him Maggie. He doesn't trust easily and I don't want to see him hurt"
Maggie looked towards Amelia's cell and hoped silently that she was doing well "So you're not in love with Daryl Dixon then?"
Carol looked down quickly, trying to think of something to change the subject with but couldn't find anything and really struggled to look at the young girl "I'm not IN love. I just care for him..."
"Oh Carol!" and she hurled herself over the table to wrap her in a tight hug that she didn't feel she deserved. Carol knew deep down it was stupid harbouring feelings for a man who saw you as nothing but a friend but she couldn't help herself. Daryl Dixon had been the only man nice enough to treat her with a little respect. To him her opinions mattered and that had been alluring. Carol had felt like a real strong woman with Daryl around but now she felt weak and undesirable.
It was wrong for her to feel jealousy for Amelia but she couldn't help it. The way Amelia walked was attractive, the way her long dark hair caught the light, her bright green eyes, her skills, her ample bottom and firm breasts, her long less and beautiful skin. Why would anyone pick plain old Carol over this beautiful creature? Even covered in blood and cut open she looked better than Carol. Daryl would never like her, no never.
His brooding eye's never left her as her cell finally emptied. Everyone was tired and preparing for tomorrow so he scooted closer to her, trying not to give into to his own needs of sleep. Daryl would not let her down on this. It was the least he could fuckin' do he figured. What he deep down wanted to do, but would never find the courage to was to get on the small bed with her and hold her so that in a way she wouldn't be able to leave him. He would hold on tight enough. However, instead he decided holding her hand tightly would be enough. The softness of her skin on his was inviting and soothing, she was warm too and he felt himself leaning into the side of the bed with his eye's closing.
It was okay-he would only rest them.
There is no such word as rest when Daryl Dixon was barely clinging on to the conscious. He was already asleep by the time his head had hit the mattress. His mind was again, reliving their kiss, his first kiss but the setting seemed different, darker. He felt himself scrambling suddenly and they where both on a large bed with the lights off, touching each other, trying to take one another's clothes off without their mouths leaving eachothers. Daryl was surprised at how brave he was was being with her but she was giving him no choice to be anything less.
Her hands where all over him, pinching, scratching, pulling him in closer and he was groaning at her fierce intensity of want and need.
"Daryl" she breathed huskily into his ear "I want you"
And it was the best thing he had ever heard in his entire life. He was staring into her lust filled eyes, not believing his luck as the beautiful woman below him began to kiss his neck. He wasn't sure whether to take her right there and then or get her to write it down on paper. Daryl Dixon had never been wanted by anyone, ever.
His own lust returned and he pushed her down with a smirk and began to tear at the small buttons of her shirt, desperate to see her but what he saw almost killed him. Blood was pouring from her chest, leaking all over his hands.
"What's wrong?" she asked, looking at him. He couldn't respond as he was jolted back into the conscious, sweating and shaking trying to calm every nerve in his hyper aware body. He looked at her then, grimly seeing her sleeping form across the bed and felt the guilt of a life time return.
"Fuck" he breathed, letting go of her hand and turning his back on her "Fuck it all"
