AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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It was all lost. Everything was lost. What the Walkers didn't destroy, the fire would.
If he'd known they all made it out alive, at least he could say that they had the most important things—the people that they cared about in this world that consumed everything that mattered—but he wasn't really sure who had made it and who hadn't.
Daryl kept getting pushed further and further away from the farmhouse once the herd really started to settle in on the farm. By the time he made it to the road, people were fleeing. There was only so much fighting that could be done before it was just useless. Daryl saw vehicles driving away, but he couldn't recall who was driving what, and he wasn't even sure he'd known to begin with.
The only truck that Daryl could wave down from the main exodus from the farm was the one carrying T-Dog, Beth, and Sophia. And he only caught that one because T-Dog wasn't speeding quite as quickly through the herd as the others were. Maybe he was scared of crashing with the people he had in tow. Daryl waved him down in hope of finding out what was happening—who was left—and his heart had hopped around erratically in his chest when he'd seen Sophia sitting in the truck.
T-Dog had told him then the one thing that Daryl had feared hearing—Carol wasn't with him. She wasn't with anyone. She was back at the farmhouse.
They would meet at the highway. They'd meet at the car that marked the spot where they'd lost Sophia. Daryl would find them there, but he couldn't go with Carol still on the farm. Daryl tried to circle back to the house, but the Walkers were too thick for him to get through. Between the sounds of the barn falling and the brightness of the fire that was spreading quickly to swallow up the house that Hershel Greene had called home, the Walkers were moving as quickly as they could in that direction. Daryl could stay back from them without being noticed too much, but he couldn't wade through them. It was certain death to try.
The last truck that Daryl saw leaving the farm, sometime later, had carried Lori, Rick, Carl, and Hershel. Like the others, they were headed for the highway. They'd be waiting at the marked car.
They'd expected Daryl to follow them, but he couldn't.
He felt desperate. He felt like he was drowning. If he were closer to the fire, he'd blame his suffocation on the thick smoke, but at the distance he was keeping he knew that it wasn't smoke choking him out. It wasn't smoke, either, burning his eyes to the point of dampness—even if he might like to believe that it was.
It was all lost. She was lost.
Daryl sat on his bike watching the fire spread and consume the farm. In the darkness, it was almost like a horror movie. It was the death of whatever hope they'd started to scrape together. It was all being consumed by the flames and burned down to nothing. Even the Walkers, too dumb to know that fire would eventually consume them too, were walking into the fire to come out flaming balls of destruction and decay.
And among all of it, she was lost.
Daryl had never loved a woman before except for his mother. He still remembered, too, the day that their house burned to the ground. He still remembered the lingering smell of smoke that seemed to hang in the air for days. He remembered the cold shock to the system that he'd felt when he realized just how quickly he could lose everything that really mattered to him at all.
His mother had just been gone.
And now, watching the farm burn, Daryl realized that in some cruel way, his life was just repeating itself.
Carol was just gone.
When Walkers bothered stumbling near him, Daryl leaned up from his seat on the bike enough to drive his knife through their skulls and he pushed them backward away from him to lie in a pile until the fire spread enough to swallow them up and reduce them to dust and bone.
Sophia was with T-Dog. She'd need somebody.
Eventually, Daryl knew, he'd have to leave his mourning and head to the highway. He'd been alone as a kid and he knew it was a damn rough place to be. It would be even harder now. He couldn't give Carol anything now. She was lost to him. The only thing he could do, even if Carol would never know he did it, was take care of the kid that she left behind—a kid that she loved more than herself.
Sophia was the last part of her that remained.
But he wasn't quite done mourning yet, and they would wait for him for a while.
Daryl heard the sounds of things exploding, everything being swallowed up one bit at a time by the fire, and then he heard other sounds that he was sure weren't even real. When he heard the screaming, he almost chocked it up to simply being something that he wanted to hear. He wanted to hear her voice so badly that his brain, so overcome by the feeling of knowing that she was gone when she'd just become so close, was producing something to try to give itself hope. If the screams hadn't drawn closer, Daryl might have never believed in them.
But then he saw her. A dark silhouette against the flaming backdrop. She was running straight for the road a short distance away from him. The Walkers that had been interested only in the fire and the noises that it was producing as it hit one explosive item or another had turned to come after her. It seemed that even over the smoke they could smell her and they wanted to feed. She'd had a gun, but that must have been gone. Some of the popping that Daryl attributed to the fire must have been the last of her bullets.
Daryl watched her running for just a second, trying to decide if she was real or if the whole thing was a desperate and elaborate hallucination.
When he was sure it was her, he cranked the bike and rode in her direction, stopping on the road directly in her path.
He didn't fully believe it was really her even as he was yelling at her to get on and making space for her to be able to do so before one of the gruesome creatures could get their hands on her. He didn't even believe it was her when she wrapped her arms around him and he felt the pressure of her face against his back.
Daryl didn't have time to say anything to her. He didn't have time to tell her how he felt or how worried he'd been and he doubted that he'd have the words to do so even if time had been abundant. The only thing he could do was get them both out of there. Sitting on his bike, watching the fire burn, Daryl had started to lose a little hope for the future. Feeling her pressed against him, though, with her arms encircling him, Daryl felt his chest swell with a determination that had started to slip away from him. Weaving through the Walkers, all of a sudden, seemed like an easy task. A fun game that he was a shoe in to win.
And he did win it.
Daryl stopped the bike when they were clear of the majority of the herd. He dared to leave the headlight on, hoping that it wouldn't attract any Walkers in the short time they were stopped. He couldn't see her too well in the dim light that it provided to the area, but he could at least see her better than he would be able to without any light at all. To avoid the majority of the Walkers, he'd had to go some distance out of his way, but now they'd be able to start making their way to the highway. He needed just a moment, though, to make sure that she was really there. He needed a moment to make sure that she was OK and she wasn't bit.
He needed to assure himself that all wasn't lost, after all.
When Daryl stood up, Carol seemed to take his lead without him having to say anything and she got off the bike in a hurry. She looked around, clearly checking for Walkers. Daryl couldn't help himself, so he reached out and pulled her to him in a hug. She sunk into him for a moment, squeezing him back, but then she pulled away.
"Where are we?" Carol asked.
"Couple miles away from where the hell we need to be," Daryl said. "But I had to get away from the Walkers. We'll go from here to the highway and follow it back to where everybody's waitin'."
"Sophia," Carol started.
"With T," Daryl said. "Seen 'em leave the farm."
"They got away?" Carol asked.
Daryl nodded.
"I seen 'em," Daryl said. "They got clear of the herd. They'll be there waitin' on us."
"We should go," Carol said.
"I thought you got left behind," Daryl said.
"I stayed behind to try to help Lori find Carl," Carol said. "I don't know if she found Carl. I never found her."
"She got out," Daryl said. "Carl too."
"Good," Carol said, breathing out a deep breath. "What about the others?"
"Just seen the two vehicles up close," Daryl said. "The rest was leavin' while I was still in the thick of it. I like to think they're all there at the highway, but I don't know. Didn't see nobody else for sure."
Carol nodded her head.
"Ed..." she started, but then she stopped. Daryl gave her a second to continue, but she didn't.
"Didn't see him," Daryl said. "Not at all."
Carol shook her head.
"He didn't get off the farm," Carol said.
Daryl swallowed and nodded his head. He figured that maybe she'd seen him. Maybe she'd even seen him, as one of those creatures, wandering around. He couldn't be any scarier to her, Daryl was sure, as a Walker than he was as himself.
"It's OK," Daryl said. "Gonna be OK." He wasn't sure if she might be upset about the man's death. Even though he was a bastard, he was her husband and the fact of the matter remained that she must have at least been attached to him once upon a time. Daryl wasn't going to judge her if his death was a shock to her.
Carol shook her head.
"You don't understand," Carol said. "He didn't get off the farm because...because I..."
Carol stopped and Daryl instinctively reached forward and pulled her back into a hug. She clung to him and he gave her the time that she needed. He could hear some rustling in the woods around the road, and he was sure they couldn't stay there long, but he figured they had a few moments.
"What's wrong?" Daryl asked when she finally pulled away. "What the hell happened out there?"
"I killed him," Carol said finally, her words coming out with a gasp. "He grabbed me and—he wanted me to leave with him. And I killed him. I shot him. Twice. Once in the head."
Daryl swallowed and nodded his head.
"So—he's gone," Daryl said. "So—that's good, right? Means he ain't gonna fuck with you no more. Ain't gonna fuck with Sophia."
"It means I'm a murderer," Carol said. "I murdered my husband. My daughter's father. I killed him, Daryl. With him looking at me. I killed him."
Daryl nodded his head.
"I reckon you did," Daryl said.
Carol's voice changed when she spoke again.
"Does that make you afraid of me?" Carol asked.
Daryl laughed to himself.
"You scare the shit outta me to be honest," Daryl said. "But it ain't because of that. Hell—if I'da run into Ed out there I'da put a bullet in him for you an' just called it casualty of war. He deserved what he got. He deserved worse, probably. Don't make you a murderer. I'd call it self-defense. At the very least? Was just doin' what needed to be done."
Carol stared at him.
"You said I scared you," Carol said. "Why?"
Daryl laughed to himself. He shook his head.
"Stupid," he said.
"I still want to hear it," Carol said.
"There's Walkers rustlin' about in these woods," Daryl said. "We stay too long they'll be on top of us again."
"Then you should talk quickly," Carol said, a hint of a smile playing at her features.
Daryl swallowed and licked his lips.
"Never met nobody like you," Daryl said. "Never met nobody could—make me feel like you make me feel."
"How do I make you feel?" Carol asked.
"Like I can't breathe," Daryl said. "But in a good way. Like—my heart just won't beat like it's supposed to. Like I'm comin' undone and I can't even hold it all together." Daryl dropped his eyes from her intense stare. When he brought them back up, she was still looking at him. "Now you think I'm an idiot," Daryl said.
Carol shook her head. She reached out and took his hand. She pressed it against her chest. He could feel the soft fabric of her shirt and the soft skin below it that was slightly sticky with dried sweat.
"Can you feel that?" Carol asked. "My pulse is...it's not exactly stable."
"Runnin'," Daryl said.
"I'm not that out of shape," Carol said. "It already calmed down from that. But—it's having a harder time calming down from just a hug."
Daryl swallowed and took a chance. He leaned in and Carol met him for the kiss that he sought. For just a moment he forgot about the fire. He forgot about the farm that had been lost. He forgot about watching tail lights as everyone he knew fled for safety. He forgot about the fear that he'd felt and the sadness that had overwhelmed him when he thought that Carol was dead. He forgot about all of it.
All he could think about was the feeling of kissing her. She was very real. And she was even more his, now, than she ever had been before. Even as they kissed, perhaps, the fire was swallowing Ed Peletier up and erasing him completely from a world where he'd probably never done any good for anyone.
When they pulled apart, Carol was smiling at him. Daryl didn't even need the dim light that the headlights provided to tell him that.
"Now it's beating even more erratically," Carol said.
"Don't think mine's ever gonna be the same," Daryl said. "Think you changed the rhythm of it completely." He sucked in a breath. "And as much as I just wanna stay here all night long—there really are Walkers in the woods."
"Sophia's going to be worried," Carol said, nodding her head.
"Don't want her to worry," Daryl responded. He leaned forward and pecked Carol's lips once more before he got back on the bike. He stayed standing, waiting for her to get comfortable. This time, when she wrapped herself around him, Daryl felt an unexpected and warm peace wash over him.
His heart was still pounding in his chest, but it felt wonderful. As he navigated his way to the highway and started in the direction of the traffic snare where he knew they'd find everyone that was left, Daryl's mind buzzed with a happiness that was, perhaps, out of place for such a night.