DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN 'THE WALKING DEAD'.
Author's notes: I thought the scene in which Merle and Andrea were talking about Daryl in 3.03 was close to an Andryl scene in my opinion. T~T My shipper heart. Anyway, this fic was inspired by that scene. ~_~ A what-if scenario of Andrea and Daryl together in the prison, a bit off from canon.
"Hey," Daryl appeared right outside Andrea's cell, causing her to sit up on the bed on the lower bunk that she had been resting on. He lightly banged his knuckles on the metal grills as a form of knocking. "We're up on guard duty."
Andrea nodded. ""Let's head out together. Hold on." She swung her legs to the side of the bed, grabbed a pair of dry clean socks she'd handwashed herself, put those on, and slipped on her boots. Next, she grabbed her gun and headed out her cell, where Daryl was standing outside waiting for her. They made their way past the cells, catching a glimpse of the rest of the group sleeping in their respective spaces. They even walked by a snoring Merle, sleeping on the top bunk in the double decker in the cell the Dixon brothers had claimed. At first, Daryl insisted on never spending a night in a prison cell, but Merle told him to stop being a pussy, it's just a damn cell. Daryl relented, and moved his stuff to the quarters his older brother had chosen.
Andrea thinks that's the reason Daryl has taken up keeping watch almost every night, except when Rick tells him to get some sleep and that someone else will cover for him. Sleeping inside the prison cell just doesn't sit well with him.
Daryl and Andrea had to check the perimeter of the prison before going ahead to the watchtower to relieve Glenn and Oscar on their shift, which was what Rick had instructed.
They kept a leisurely pace, but both had their eyes and ears on alert as they took in the dark surroundings beyond the prison fence, checking to see anything amiss or hiding out in the dark. Walkers loitered outside, but Andrea and Daryl were on the lookout for people from Woodbury. From time to time, they would stroll about, looking beyond their boundaries for anything that might threaten the quiet, calm night. They weren't worried about the walkers getting inside, oh no. They knew the mindless zombies didn't have the intellectual capacity to strategize a way of infiltrating the prison. Daryl and Andrea were on the lookout for other survivors like them that could endanger the safety of the group.
Strange that a year ago, they were scared of walkers, but given their current situation, encounters with walkers would be more welcome than other survivors; in this new world order, they had to fight off both the dead and the living.
Together, Daryl and Andrea walked by the fence, the night's silence broken not by crickets singing, but by low moans from the few walkers trudging outside the wire border.
Somehow, Daryl remembered a time when he had been on a similar walk with Andrea during the night, except it was in a forest. Just like back then, he was armed with his trusty crossbow while Andrea held a flashlight, a handgun in a holster by her hip.
Up at this point, they'd been walking side by side in silence, but it seemed that blondie had something in her mind that she needed to speak to him about, so Daryl prompted her. "You got somethin' to say to me, out with it."
Andrea looked at him, her eyes widening in surprise. She held up her hands for a second before putting it down, as if pleading guilty as she nodded. "Yes, I do have something I want to tell you."
Daryl shrugged, looking out the fences into the darkness for something amiss as they both continued their patrolling pace. "So?"
"I think I understand why you searched so hard for Sophia," Andrea was looking at Daryl when he snapped his eyes up to her. It was still a painful topic for him and Andrea knew that, but she had something to say to him that he needed to hear, and he'd encouraged her to share it. "It wasn't just because you knew what it felt like to be a child lost in the forest," She gave him a small smile. "I think it's because you wanted to believe that if you could find Sophia alive, you could find Merle alive and kicking too."
Daryl looked down at the tips of his worn shoes. He felt embarrassed, although he had no reason to be. He chose not to comment, sensing that Andrea had more to say, and he wanted to hear it.
"As much of a dick that he can be, Merle's pretty lucky to have you as a brother. Makes me think he must've done something right in his past life to have you."
Daryl decided to do his job and scan the dark surroundings outside the fence, making his avoidance of eye contact seem casual and not out of his awkwardness. "Well, growin' up, I always thought I was the lucky one to have Merle as my big brother, looking out for my back and all." Daryl shrugged. "Wasn't always there for me, but that was 'cause he's doin' time in juvi for his shit."
"That's family," Andrea said with a look towards Daryl's direction. "I hadn't always been there for Amy too, you know."
"What, you also spent time in juvi?" Daryl had an eyebrow raised.
"Well, no, not like that." Andrea sighed as she looked back on a regret. "You know, Amy and I had a big age gap between us, and I was off to college and then law school when she was just a little kid."
Andrea remembered heading off to college with a six-year-old sister who cried and fussed; her mother explained that Amy might be having separation anxiety. Instead of attempting to comfort the little girl, Andrea had angrily pleaded her mother to get Amy to calm down and take her somewhere else, preferably somewhere far, because the crying child was embarrassing her as she, with the help of her father, moved her things to her dorm room on her first day of settling in. The few, brief times she was home, she was always telling Amy to go and play outside with her friends because she couldn't be bothered while she was studying. And yet, she'd always found time to go on dates or hang out at bars and cafés with friends and classmates. But never for her baby sister.
"I wasn't there for her. I saw her as this nuisance, and I was so annoyed every time she wanted to spend time with me… I thought she was as needy and clingy as a boyfriend.
Now that made Daryl laugh.
"I was always telling my parents that I wasn't a babysitter, but I forgot I was a big sister."
Daryl turned to look at Andrea, and she looked at him guiltily. "I wasn't a good big sister," Andrea kicked at the dirt, shuffling her feet as she tucked her hands into her jeans pockets. "I was too self-absorbed. I guess I never outgrew the mindset of an only child." She tried to chuckle to make light of the topic, but it sounded painful to her ears. She regretted taking for granted all those years she could have bonded with Amy. It had to take the breakdown of society and civilized government along with the zombie apocalypse to bring them together as sisters and strengthen their bond.
"We just make do with the time we've got," Daryl responded, positioning his crossbow in a ready-to-fire position as he realized he was slackening, not wanting to be caught off guard if the Governor launched a surprise attack on them that night. "The important thing is, you and Amy were more than good until her last moments."
Their round around the perimeter finished in silence, they then made their way to the tower for the lookout post to take the shift from Glen and Oscar.
"Daryl," Andrea called out, making him turn back around to face her. "For what it's worth, I…" She paused, wondering if she should continue, but then she'd never been one to hold back her own opinion. "I'm glad you got your brother back."
Daryl didn't know what to say to that. It seemed like a 'congratulations' that one would receive at their graduation, or at their announcement of getting a promotion.
Andrea nodded as she looked away, hoping to come off as nonchalant. "Not all of us are as lucky or blessed as you and Rick to be reunited with their families in these times."
Daryl nodded at her in acknowledgement as he looked down. He could feel the tension in Andrea, and he knew just how difficult it had been for her to say that because it reminded her of her loss of her family.
Daryl could only say the only thing he had in his mind. "I'm sorry… about Amy."
Andrea's head eyes snapped back to his, and for a moment, Daryl thought he had said the wrong thing, that she would lash out at him. But Andrea only stared at him with wide, lost eyes, before she drew a deep breath and looked away because her eyes, her beautiful green eyes were collecting tears. Her lip quivered and she pursed them in an effort to stop herself from tipping to the verge of crying. She knew if she said anything, she'd choke on it. So she just nodded with a tearful smile at Daryl to acknowledge his condolence, accepting it graciously. She then walked onward past him, and though he couldn't see her crying face, he could see her shoulders shaking from suppressing sobs.
She barely made a sound. And that made something twist in Daryl's heart. He thought about leaving her to grieve the memory of her sister in private, but something stronger pulled him to her, and he went with it. Without thinking about how his next action would be perceived, he wrapped an arm around Andrea's shoulders, embracing her from behind. When she froze, Daryl thought she'd slam her elbow to his ribs to keep some distance between them while cussing him out as some pervert, but she didn't. Instead, she relaxed and accepted his unspoken and unorthodox way of offering her comfort. She slumped into him and placed a hand atop his hand on her shoulder. Then she let the tears fall down her cheeks and the sobs come out of her throat.
Reach out, hold back
Where is safety
Reach out and hold back
Where is the one who can change me
Where is the one
The one
~The Tower, sung by Vienna Teng (Waking Hour, 2002)
A/n: I've always thought the parallelism and dichotomy between the siblings (Andrea/Amy, Daryl/Merle) was a very interesting aspect of the show. I think that's one of the reasons that I ship Andryl. Anyways, this fic was a little take on that. It's too bad they killed off Andrea prematurely in the TV series though. T_T