So, something tells me that I need a pretty damn good reason for not updating in so long. Unfortunately, all I've got is that a couple of 15 to 25-page papers really CAN kick your ass, as well as a couple of other stuff that is nothing more tha excuses. However, I am back and I have not forgotten you guys, so please, accept my humblest apologies and I have a nice long chapter here for you as way of apology as well :)
kat hatake90: Thank you so much for giving me an idea for a future flashback chapter! I've asked multiple times for people to give me ideas for flashback chapters, but apparently, its like talking to a computer screen (*da da DUM!) lol, but thanks - its muchly appreciated! :)
DarylDixon'sLover: Don't worry - I don't plan on it :)
HaloHunter89: Okay, I'm actually surprised that I didn't get an angry PM from you wondering where the Hell I've been, but like I said, I'm back now. Hopefully I won't take another long absence like that again without letting you guys know :) And I hope you've gotten better!
Sorry again for the long absence and I hope you guys enjoy!
- Nagiana
PS - Stole a major scene from Beth and gave it to Tessa - I'm sure you guys won't mind. Also, sorry if it skips around a bit, but I didn't want to make this chapter feel tedious. And, oh yeah - the lemon will come next chapter :)
"You vow your life and blood
But this is not our home
In the water
Our hope here's never found
Just try and keep your way
In the water.
Who we are today
Could never make amends for what we've one
Tainted blood
His eyes are full of love
Forgive them
Release them.
"In the Water" – by Anadel
The arrow missed the squirrel climbing down from the tree and lodged into the tree instead. Daryl and Ethan exchanged a look before the both of them lowered their weapons and moved to fetch the arrow. After pulling it free of the tree, Daryl's observant eye noticed it was broken, and Ethan could sense the frustration that rolled of his father at the realization.
"Fuck . . ." He muttered as he crumpled it up and threw it away from him. Ethan's lips pursed.
"We got the rattlers. We're good for today." He told him and Daryl silently glanced at him then, his eyes quickly scanning his features. His son had grown taller still, he noticed – becoming more of Will Dixon's height than Daryl's like he and Tessa had thought, but his face was thinner – gaunter. His eyes were ringed with black and his cheeks sunken . . . he knew Tessa and the others looked the same, and realized that even the babies were starting to look a little peaked now.
The fact made him grit his teeth in frustrated anger for a moment. He was supposed to be the provider. He was supposed to be the one who found the food and brought it back to camp. He was supposed to feed them and protect them and do whatever else it was his responsibility to do.
And with every look at Ethan's face and then at Wren's and Beth's . . . with every glimpse of Tessa's ribs when she would change her clothes in front of him at night, made him feel like he wasn't doing his job.
He hated feeling that way.
After a moment, he heaved a sigh and nodded. "Yeah . . . yeah, let's get back and skin 'em and dress 'em." He told him and Ethan nodded as they turned around and began making their careful way back to the camp.
"Momma's gonna pissed we didn' get her a squirrel . . ." Ethan mused after a moment, and Daryl nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, I know, right? She's been cravin' the damn things like crazy for tha past few weeks now. It's been kinda hard to keep up with her quota." He joked and Ethan gave a laugh as they finally reached the ramshackle camp they had set up. Tessa had managed to start a fire and as they dropped their bags and Ethan reached in to grab a snake, Daryl moved over to Tessa, where he placed a chaste but loving kiss on her lips. Beth and Wren were busy stringing the walker traps across the tree trunks surrounding the camp, and looked up when they entered the clearing, but ignored them in favor of their current task.
"Sorry, babydoll, but I didn' get ya a squirrel." He told her and a look of distaste briefly appeared on her face before she gave a shrug.
"It doesn't matter. Would have been nice to have something else other than snake for once, but . . . I can live." She told him and he gave her a small smile before pressing a more lingering kiss to her lips. She returned it for a minute before allowing him to return to Ethan already skinning his snake, where he reached in to withdraw another rattler from the bag. She watched them as they skinned and dressed the snakes before stringing them across the meager fire and tore her eyes away, only when she noticed Beth and Wren's words to each other were starting to be filled with a little bit more venom than usual.
"Girls . . ." Tessa called to them quietly and while Ethan kept on cleaning the snake in his hands, she noticed Daryl's movements paused ever-so-slightly. When she shot him an assuring look, his movements sped back up again. Her eyes remained pinned on the two girls and they gazed at her for a moment before glancing at each other. Their lips pursed and they silently returned to what they had been doing. Beth and Wren were starting to not get along – both were as exhausted and stressed as the rest of them but yet, it seemed different with the two girls. Tessa couldn't exactly put her finger on it, but she knew something was there, nevertheless.
Everything fell into silence then, except for the occasional baby gurgle and broken word that one of the twins uttered every now and then, as well as the popping from the fire that Tessa had managed to build. The snakes sizzled when Daryl crossed the short distance between them and lay them over the hot coals before taking a seat on the other side of the twins. His eyes settled on the cooking animals while Ethan moved over to Wren and Beth to see what was taking them so long to set up the "alarm system".
"Dada . . . dada 'ook!"
Daryl turned a politely disinterested gaze onto Danny as he crawled across the blanket stretched out underneath him and his sister, to Daryl. One pudgy hand flattened out on his shoulder as he hefted himself to his feet and Daryl reflexively brought up a hand to his back to balance him.
"What'cha got there Little Man?" He asked and adopted a look of interest on his face as Danny shoved a battered block under his nose and insisted that he take it and observe it as he described it to him in broken baby language and English. Tessa couldn't help but grin as Daryl sat there, nodding every once in a while to tell his son he was still listening, and eventually, Daryl noticed and grinned at her. "What'cha grinnin' at over there, babydoll?" He asked and she shook her head.
"Nothing. Your just . . . your so sexy when you're in daddy mode." She told him and he chuckled as he handed Danny back his block. The little boy dropped back onto his behind and crawled back over to his sister, who snatched the block from him immediately before replacing it with a MegaBlock. He shot her a look.
"Well ya not so bad yaself, hot-stuff . . . even when ya haven' taken a shower in a week or so . . ." He teased and she wrinkled her nose up in disgust.
"Yeah, don't remind me -!"
"Tess, I need a drink."
Immediately, Tessa and Daryl turned wide-eyed looks of shock upwards when the voice reached them and interrupted her mid-sentence. They had expected to see Ethan standing before them, but instead, finding themselves face-to-face with Beth. In fact, Ethan and Wren both were standing behind her, wide-eyed looks of shock on their faces as well. Tessa ended up shaking her head and shrugged weakly. "I don't . . . the water's over there, sweetie." She told her with a laugh of disbelief and a nod in the direction of the bottles of water they had stored up, but Beth gave an irritated shake of her head.
"No, I mean a real drink . . . like alcohol." She told them and when Tessa's eyebrows threatened to disappear up into her hairline and Daryl let out a scoff of laughter, she shifted uneasily from foot-to-foot and continued: "It's just that . . . I've never had a drink before -"
"Obviously!" Wren scoffed and Tessa sent her a scolding look before returning her attention back onto Beth.
"Mainly 'cause of my dad," She continued and Tessa nodded, bidding her to continue: "But he's not exactly around anymore, so . . ." She trailed off and when Daryl seemed content to ignore her and let Tessa handle this, Tessa replied by giving a weak shrug.
Truthfully, she could use a drink too, and she knew Daryl could, but all couldn't, for various reasons.
"Beth, honey, I don't know what you expect me to do about it! I mean . . . it's not like I can pull a bottle of Bacardi or Jamesons or-or Smirnoff from my diaper bag!" She told her with a laugh, and Beth nodded.
"Well that's good! I thought we could all go find some!"
These words were what finally directed Daryl's attention onto her. "Excuse me?" He asked and Beth immediately felt her words fail her under his intense glare. He was sorry, but he found his desire to put everyone at danger because one little girl wanted to go out and search for the last bottle of vodka in the apocalypse, a little ridiculous. It wasn't about to happen.
He simply shook his head and they dissolved into silence then, a silence that for a moment, seemed like the topic had been dropped. But then Beth gave a weak shrug. "Okay, well . . . have fun with your snake jerky." She eventually spoke with a nod in the direction of the snakes cooking on the fire, before she turned around and headed off to the dense brush. Tessa froze, and so too did Ethan and Wren. Daryl, however, seemed fine with letting her go off on her own. Immediately, Tessa's arm shot out, where she curled a hand around his forearm.
"Daryl, we can't just let her go out on her own!" She hissed and he shrugged.
"Why not? Tess, I ain' 'bout to put my family in danger 'cause one little girl wants to get drunk! It ain' gonna fuckin' happen!"
"Well we can't just let this happen! What if we split up? What if two of us goes with her and the other two stay back here with the twins?" She asked and immediately, Daryl gave her a look that could have frozen fire.
"Tess, there's no way in Hell tha's gonna happen either!" He told her through angrily gritted teeth and she rolled her eyes and threw her hands up in the air in exasperation.
"Well then you better start packin' the essential, because I am not about to let her go alone!" She snapped at him and Daryl shook his head. She could see his jaw harden as he continued to pin a cold gaze onto her, but she also saw amusement flickering in his eyes as well.
"Damn ya Momma Bear instincts!" He muttered as he got to his feet before calling for Ethan and Wren. Tessa smiled a small smile as she reached down and picked up Danny. Wren immediately grabbed up Aayla.
"Yeah, well, that's why you love me, remember? Now go on, what direction did she go in? We better catch up to her fast before she gets herself into trouble."
They came upon the country club, almost without even meaning to.
"Golfer's like to booze it up, don't they?" Beth asked them, slightly hesitantly when they first touched down onto the green of the golfing range. However, with one behind them at the herd of walkers moving out of the woods towards them, they didn't really want to stick around and debate it.
"Pine Vista Country Club . . ." Ethan spoke, reading the sign, as they made their way towards the front doors. "Hey deddy, ya ever been in a country club before?" He asked and Daryl threw him a look over his shoulder.
"Well, I think me and Merle had a job cleanin' one of tha pools one summer . . ."
"How did that go?"
"Merle got pissed 'cause he thought one older black guy was insultin' him 'cause of our 'white trash background' and took a shit in tha pool when no one was lookin'. It kinda got us fired." He told him and Ethan gave a bark of a laugh, Tessa a laugh, as they reached the front doors.
"Figures, with Merle . . ." She murmured as they gazed at the double doors and when Daryl reached forward and yanked on the doors, he let out a curse when they didn't open – barricaded inside.
"Come on – there's gotta be a backdoor . . ." Wren spoke as she tossed an anxious look over her shoulders at the walkers quickly closing the distance between them, and Daryl nodded in agreement as he led the way around to the back. Sure enough, there were two glass-paned doors waiting for them. Thankfully, these two were unlocked and not barricaded shut.
He ushered them in quickly before closing the door and they looked around, finding themselves in a room that looked to have been a group sleeping quarters or something along those lines. "Seems like they tried holing up in here . . ." Tessa mused and Daryl nodded as he spread a hand across her lower back.
"Be careful . . . we still don' know if we're alone." He told her and she pursed her lips before nodding in agreement.
"Right . . . keep an eye out for walkers and people alike. We don't know who we can trust -"
Tessa abruptly stopped speaking when Daryl's recently acquired flashlight, shone on the three bodies hanging from the ceiling rafters by their necks – three hanging walkers. Wren immediately let out a squeak and turned around, while Tessa felt her breath being trapped in her throat. "Oh my God . . ." She breathed and Daryl slowly nodded.
"With any luck, maybe we'll run into someone from the group." Ethan muttered as they inched their way slowly past them, and Daryl glanced back at him as he led the way further into the country club.
"Same here, but jus' . . . don' get ya hopes up, okay?" He told him and Ethan nodded glumly as he hefted his crowbar higher up on his shoulder. They both threw the thoughts far away into their mind, knowing their odds of finding a friendly face, slim to none.
Making their way to the grand ballroom of the country club, went a lot smoother than any of them would have thought. With only one instance of someone getting attacked by a walker (it was Beth)
("Thanks for the help."
"Ya said ya could take care of yaself. And besides . . . tha' big bastard wasn' goin' after Tess and the kids, so . . . figured I'd let ya get ya feet wet")
And one instance of being chased by a group of walkers down a tight, dark, and extremely claustrophobic hallway, they were all intensely relieved when they finally reached their destination all in one piece, and without a scratch or a bite in sight. However, Beth continued to shoot Daryl dirty looks when she thought he wasn't paying attention.
"I do believe ya killed a walker back in there, didn' ya, babydoll?" Daryl asked and Tessa shot him a look as she investigated behind the bar for Beth's coveted bottle of booze. In truth, she was feeling a little irritated at the girl. They had put themselves in danger for a bottle of booze and so far, it seemed like that had been a pipe dream. She wasn't amused,
"And I do believe you went to town on one with a golf club!" She replied and Daryl gave a shrug. He opened his mouth to speak, however, they closed their mouths when Beth looked at them.
"I found it. Peach schnapps . . . is it any good?" She asked and Daryl immediately let out a scoff of laughter.
"Naw." He spoke as he made his way over to Ethan and Wren sorting through the shit piled everywhere in the room with the twins sitting on the floor beside them, and Tessa gave her a small smile as she reached under the counter and withdrew a shot glass, where she handed it to her.
"Don't listen to him. He has a liver made of iron – his entire family did – so he understandably likes the harder stuff. I, however, think it's pretty good. It's especially good if you mix it, but considering we don't have anything to mix it with, I suppose straight will just have to do . . ." She told her and Beth gave her a thankful smile before shakily pouring herself a shot glass full.
"Well . . . it's the only thing left . . ." She spoke and Tessa nodded, not saying anything as Beth sat up straighter in her seat and gazed at the shot glass of liquor sitting in front of her, almost as if she had to will up the courage she needed to take it. She glanced at Tessa. "Will it burn? I know some alcohol burns going down . . ." She spoke, starting to babble, and Tessa gave her an amused look. She shot a look to Ethan when he snickered and said:
"That's what she said." It was a quip that also earned him a slap on the chest from Wren, before she settled another amused one onto Beth. Daryl was throwing darts at a plague depicting the founders of the country-club and the 'TWACK-TWACK' of them hitting the plague, reverberated throughout the room.
"It all depends on you, sweetie. Some alcohol burns with different people. Like, personally, I can't stand tequila – shit burns like fires going down, but rum now . . . rum is like molten gold for me." She told her and Beth gave her another thankful smile as she took ahold of the shot glass. Tessa continued to watch as Beth stared at the shot glass for a moment before slowly breaking down into tears. Ethan and Wren stopped talking and turned slightly surprised looks onto the young woman sitting at the counter, crying with a bottle of peach schnapps in her hand. Daryl and Tessa, however, carried expressionless looks on their faces. Tessa leaned forward and settled a hand on her arm.
"Beth, sweetie – what is it?" She asked and Beth shook her head, trying desperately to blink away the tears that threatened to hit. She didn't answer her and sat there, continuing to cry quietly for a moment, before Daryl threw the last of his darts and then made his way over to them. Tessa's eyes widened in alarm as he grabbed the bottle of peach schnapps and launched it across the room. It shattered, making the twins jump in fright, their eyes widening as well, and Tessa pursed her lips as she leveled him with a glare that he ignored. Instead, he pinned his eyes onto Beth, who quickly dried up her tears.
"If ya gonna have ya first drink, it ain' gonna be no peach schnapps and ya ain' gettin' drunk alone ya first time, either! Come on everyone."
When Daryl brought the crate of clear liquor in mason jars, into the ratty living room of the beat up trailer Daryl found in the woods, Tessa immediately raised her eyebrows. "Oh no. No, no, no – they are not getting drunk off of moonshine their first time!" She told him, her voice brooking no argument, however, the grin he shot her, immediately done away with that tone of voice.
"Oh come, Tess! We did!" He told her and Tessa shook her head.
"That was different -!"
"How, momma?" Ethan asked as Daryl squatted down in front of the crate and Tessa shot him a mean look.
"Me and your deddy could afford to be stupid when we were young! Being stupid for you all now means life or death!" She told him and Daryl let out a bark of a laugh.
"Oh come on, Tess, lighten up!" He teased her and she gave him another mean glare that had him laughing. "Come on now, Beth wants to get drunk and its simply unfair to let her get drunk alone! And since ya can' 'cause of obvious reasons, then why can' Ethan get a little . . . buzzed?" He asked and Tessa shook her head.
"Daryl, I really don't think -!"
"It's okay, momma – really!" Ethan interrupted her and Tessa gave him a pleading look. He shrugged. "I mean . . . what's the worst that can happen?" He asked and Daryl arched an eyebrow.
"See? Now how 'bout it, Momma Bear? Ya gonna let our kid get buzzed offa moonshine?" He asked grinningly, and Tessa glared at him for a moment. Feeling like a horrible parent, she reluctantly nodded her acquiescence after a minute.
"Fine! But when you wake up in the morning with a splitting headache and throwing your guts up 'cause we Indians simply cannot handle our liquor in the mornings – then don't say I didn't warn you!" She told her son with a firm glare and an ever firmer tone of voice, and Ethan excitingly nodded as Daryl handed him and Beth their own mason jars.
"Here ya go – now this will put some hair on ya balls if there ain' already some on 'em!" He told them and after sniffing at it experimentally, they both took a hesitant sip. Tessa grimaced as they immediately started coughing, their faces turning red, and Daryl shot her a grin. "See, ain' nothin'!" He told her and she shook her head. The first time she had allowed Daryl and their friends to talk her into drinking moonshine, she had gotten so drunk, she ended up lying on the hood of Daryl's Jeep with her head in his still stone-cold sober lap while giggling hysterically and making wild accusations that the stars were zooming around and reforming themselves into hilarious shapes.
Understandably, Tessa distanced herself from moonshine a great deal after that.
Also the massive hangover the next morning, helped.
Eventually, she sighed. She reached forward and after withdrawing a mason jar, unscrewed the cap before handing it to him. Daryl gazed at it dumbly for a moment, his grin gone, and now it was Tessa's turn to smile. "Here, drink up, Dixon. You definitely need it." She told him and after gazing at it for a moment longer, gave her a small smile and took it. He took a big gulp that made everyone there wince but which clearly didn't bother him. He continued to smile at her as he raised the jar.
"Party time!"
Party time lasted for all of about fifteen minutes.
It started out as an innocent game of "What Have/What Haven't You Done" suggested by a cheerfully drunk Beth. It was an innocent game that immediately spiraled into something darker that Tessa hadn't seen happen since the last time she had seen Daryl drunk with Merle.
It hadn't ended pretty then, and it definitely wasn't shaping up to end pretty in this circumstance, either.
"Daryl – stop!" Tessa snapped as a look of wide-eyed shock and fear appeared on her face. Daryl had gotten angry and had jumped to his feet, where he immediately went off on an enraged tirade over shit that didn't even matter. The twins had started whimpering by then, feeding off of the drunken anger of their father and the air of apprehension he engendered because of it. When he wheeled around to face them, his eyes immediately pinned onto her, like she knew they would. She hadn't since him this bitter and pissed in a very long time, and understandably, it made her a little apprehensive.
"I'm not ya precious little Jeremy, Tess! I didn' come from a happy little family life – I didn' have a good job, or-or whatever tha fuck he had tha' made ya almost replace me with him – that made my own son almost replace me with him!" He snapped before he stood there for a moment, seemingly deep in thought. His lips pursed and he shook his head as he took a step back and then launched his mason jar full of moonshine, against the far wall. It shattered, leaving a dark stain on the equally as stained wall, and it was then that the twins started fully crying. It was also then, as Tessa watched impassively as the strong liquor trailed its way down the wall, that she remembered something. Daryl was a happy drunk when he was drunk off of regular liquor. However, when he drank moonshine, he became angry and bitter and resentful of the shitty little life he had possessed while growing up.
How could she have been so stupid and forgetful?
Tessa's jaw hardened then as she handed Aayla off to Ethan before getting to her feet. She crossed the distance between her and Daryl in three big strides. Her hand latched onto his arm and her gaze was fierce as it pinned and burned into his. "I don't know what the Hell has gotten into you, Daryl Dixon, but you need to stop! You need to stop throwing accusations around and you need to stop all this shouting! You are starting to draw walkers that are trying to get in and you are scaring the twins!"
And truthfully, he was scaring her, as well. At this moment, she didn't see Daryl standing before her – she saw his father or even his brother. She saw Will Dixon and Merle Dixon's fierce, angry gaze in his blue eyes, and for once – for one frightening, all-encompassing moment – Tessa didn't know if she could calm him down if the need arose.
He gazed at her for a moment before suddenly latching onto her upper arm and wheeling her around, where he then proceeded to drag her from the ramshackle house. Tessa let out a sound of surprise as she forced to follow him, and immediately, Ethan quickly handed his little sister off to Wren who was sitting beside him, where he then hopped to his feet and ran after them, an alarmed, scared look on his face, his previous drunkenness all but gone.
This wasn't his deddy . . . and quite frankly, that terrified him.
"Deddy – deddy – stop!"
Daryl ignored his oldest son, and ended up dragging Tessa around to the side of the house, where a walker was lumbering hungrily around trying to find a way into the house. He had been drawn by Daryl's shouts and the loud sounds he had created, and Tessa's heart immediately picked up its pace when she felt Daryl dragging her to him. What the Hell was he doing?
"Ya wanna protect this family, Tess – ya wanna do my job? Ya wanna protect tha twins and Ethan and tha girls, then shoot him!" Daryl hissed as he swung her around again before pulling her into him – her back to his front. He then raised his crossbow (where the Hell had that come from? Ethan found himself wondering) in front of them, and forced her to take it with his firm hands over hers.
"Daryl -!"
"Deddy, for the love of God – stop! Cut it out!"
"Come on Tess – shoot him right there!"
And arrow loosened itself from the crossbow then, and lodged itself in the walker's side. It stopped him and made him stumble backwards with the force of it, but he quickly righted himself and continued on towards them – mouth opening in a hungry yawn as his arms stretched out towards them. Ethan tensed at the sight and his hand shot to his knife strapped to his hip so that he could jump in and intervene if it was looking like this dangerous game his father was insisting on playing with his mother, was looking like it was about to turn deadly. Daryl let out a sound of disappointment as he shook his head. "Well, damn, Tess, would ya look at tha'? Ya missed!"
Tessa swallowed hard, her heart like a wire as it thrummed in her chest. "Daryl, baby, please – fucking stop!"
Ethan nodded in agreement at his mother's choked out words. Where the Hell had this side of him, come from? His deddy never acted like this! "Yeah, come on deddy – this ain' funny anymore!"
Daryl ignored them both. "Come on, babydoll – try again!"
Another arrow was shot into the walker's chest that time and it was then that Tessa yanked herself out of his grasp. After pulling out her knife from its sheath strapped to her thigh, she pushed the walker against a nearby tree before stabbing the sharp blade deep into his head. She wheeled around to face him as the walker slumped to the ground, dead, and she shook her head, her lungs gasping for breath as she wheeled around to face him.
"What the fuck is wrong with you, Daryl!?" She demanded breathlessly, and it took Daryl a moment to register her wide-eyed look of shock and fear. By that time, Wren and Beth had skidded to a stop beside them and a very fearful, apprehensive Ethan with his hand still on his knife. He angrily shook his head.
"What tha Hell's ya problem, Tess?"
"I want you to stop acting like you don't give a fuck right now!" She snapped back at him. "I want you to stop how you're acting right now because you are scaring me, Daryl – your scaring everyone, in fact! This is a side of you I haven't seen before and I don't know how to handle you and I'm scared! I want this side of you to go away so that'll you'll actually remember that we're your family and we need you to stop being this way!"
"Is tha' what ya think?" He asked, his voice breaking slightly, and Tessa nodded.
"Oh, I know so!"
"Ya don' what ya talkin' 'bout, Tess -"
"I know you look at me sometimes, Daryl, and you see a dead woman. I know you look at the twins sometimes and imagine them dead with their little guts ripped out. I know you imagine the same with Ethan and Wren and sometimes . . . sometimes when you put your hand over my stomach at night, I see in your eyes you're wondering if you have enough in you to care for something else in this world." She told him and Daryl's wide-eyes settled on hers again. She shook her head. "I know you're afraid, Daryl – I know your terrified! I am, we all are! You don't have to be afraid, baby!"
He shook his head as he took a few steps closer to her. "I ain' afraid of nothin', Tess – ya should know tha'!" He told her and she adopted a slightly sympathetic look on her face.
"And there he is . . . there's Will talking. There's the man that told you that real men don't get afraid – real men get angry. Is that what's happening now, Daryl? Did you get drunk and realize how terrified you are inside of losing your family to a freak something or another and then get angry because that's what your father beat into you to believe?" She shook her head. She turned around and after waving for the others to go back inside, continued when they were alone. "I remember the look in your eyes when you found me in Woodbury. I remember the look in your eyes when you saw me walk out of that cellblock with Carl and Judith but no Lori. I know what fear looks like in your eyes Daryl. There's no reason to shut me out like you've wanted to do ever since we got out of the prison."
"You don' get it! Everyone we know is dead!"
"I'm not, though, Daryl!" Tessa shouted back, her hand moving to splay over her chest. "I'm not, Ethan's not, the twins aren't . . ." She shook her head. "All of us are very much alive, baby and we are thanks to you -"
"Yeah, but thanks to me ya could have!" He interrupted her, his voice breaking again, and Tessa immediately silenced, her eyes growing wide. He shook his head and spun around so she couldn't see the bitter tears that welled up in his eyes and which threatened to well up in his eyes every time he thought about it. "Tha damn Governor jus' rolled up to our gates. Maybe if I wouldn' have stopped lookin' . . . maybe since I gave up – tha's on me -!"
"Daryl, baby -!"
She made a move towards him but he shrugged out of her embrace. They stayed quiet for a moment before he shook his head. "Hershel . . . he's dead 'cause of me. Ya almost got killed 'cause of me - ended up killin' a guy 'cause of me . . . maybe if I had done somethin' -!"
It was then that Tessa wrapped her arms around him and hugged him close, feeling his body trembling through his leathers. "Daryl, I'm here – you know I am and you know I always will be!" She told him gently, and he shook his head. He didn't say anything though, and when he crumpled to the ground, tears streaming from his eyes, Tessa gladly went with him, not once releasing her hold on him.
She'd never let him go.
