The next time Daryl woke it was gradual, his body slowly becoming aware of his surroundings before he could even comprehend he was waking. There was the rustle of someone moving about next to him, the cool touch of a palm to his forehead, pressure on his wrist. Something trying to invade his mouth… What the hell? So much for gradual. That woke him right the fuck up.
Even so, his movements were lethargic, his reactions delayed. So when he sluggishly opened his eyes, mentally preparing himself to muster up enough energy to beat someone for violating him, and crossed them to peer down at the offending object breaching his lips, it took him a moment to register that it was a thermometer. Which was really a relief. He didn't quite feel up to kicking anyone's ass right now. Not that that'd ever stopped him before when the occasion arose. He noted a hand attached to the end of the instrument, and followed the line of said hand, up the arm and, finally, to Hershel's face.
He wondered where the old man had managed to dig a thermometer up at.
"Good to see you awake." The vet greeted him. A beeping sounded then, Hershel lifted the thermometer up to peer at it with a grim expression and let out a sigh. "Your temperature is 102.1. Not as good as I'd hoped, but it's still an improvement to what it's been."
Daryl snorted incredulously. "Improvement?" His voice was quiet and filled with disbelief.
Hershel nodded gravely. "Well, yes, in comparison to 104.4 I'd say it is, wouldn't you?"
Well wasn't that fucking special. Daryl's normally stoic features displayed his shock clearly. "You're serious?"
"You've been a very ill young man, Daryl. We've all been quite worried about you. I can't be sure what your temperature was the first few days to be perfectly honest. I had no way to measure it when you first became ill. But judging by feel, your fever was steadily somewhere around 104." He began rummaging around in a bag he produced from the floor, pulling out a blood pressure cuff and wrapping it around Daryl's arm.
"Guess I'm on the mend then." Daryl stated, closing his eyes tiredly, willing his words to be accurate. He hated being sick. Despised the pounding in his head; the aches in his bones. Detested the weakness of his body; the exhaustion pervading his senses. Loathed how it made him vulnerable, dependent, helpless.
"I wouldn't say that you're out of the woods just yet, but you are doing much better. A very good sign." Hershel smiled a bit before his lighthearted expression was replaced with a more serious one. "You were doing poorly. Your condition was deteriorating rapidly and you'd been unconscious for four days. We couldn't get any fluids or medication into you orally in the state you were in, so it was imperative we get an IV started or you weren't going to make it. Of course, we didn't have anything like that on hand, and had to send Maggie and Glenn out on a run for supplies. They came back with several other things as well, including this bag of medical equipment. After losing all my equipment when the farm was overrun, it's good to have a few tools again."
Daryl silently regarded the old man as he continued his examination, digesting what'd he'd just been told. Glenn and Maggie had gone out because of him? Well didn't that just make him feel like a sunbaked sack of shit. On top of everything: not being able to go hunting, causing everyone undue stress and worry by getting sick, making them take care of him… now they had to send people out to risk their lives for his sake. He sighed and closed his eyes. Unbidden Merle's words from his dream came back to taunt him. "You knew you weren't worth it." "You was nothing to them. A resource that happened to be convenient." He shivered as the visions of that nightmare flashed before him yet again; knowing that Glenn and Maggie could easily have succumbed to the same fate fetching things for him as they had in his dream. They should never have had to do that for him.
Hershel mistook his shaking for a cold chill, which, in truth, was probably partially due to just that, and pulled the blanket up to cover him better. Daryl looked back up at the elderly man. "Ya'll shouldn't have sent them out for me."
"What on earth do you mean?" Hershel asked, astonished.
"Wasn't worth the risk." His feverish gaze locked onto the older man, the glazed pools of blue emitting certainty and self-depreciation.
"Son, I don't think you know what you're saying. Without fluids…"
Daryl cut him off, his voice weak and quiet, but adamant. "I do know! I either would have pulled through, or I'd have died. It still wasn't any reason to send Glenn and Maggie, or anyone in the group for that matter, into danger. My life ain't worth all that."
"That's simply not true, and I think deep down you know that." Hershel returned with conviction.
"It is true. I've failed this group. I hunt for ya'll, and now I can't even do that. Wasn't bringing much back before all this anyway. You people shouldn't have risked yourselves. Should've just let me be." This whole situation was fucked. He was a liability now. A burden and stress on the group's resources and manpower. They needed to be putting their efforts into surviving the remainder of the winter, not babysitting his sorry ass.
Hershel was quiet for a moment trying to read Daryl's expression, but it remained closed off. "Son, you've done anything but fail us, and we all care about you. You should know we'd never just leave you to waste away uncared for. You'd do the same for any one of us, why would we do any less for you?"
Daryl chose not to answer. This conversation had taken a lot out of him, leaving him weary and despondent. He inwardly cursed himself for tiring so easily.
When he received no response from his recalcitrant patient, Hershel went on. "At any rate, I'd like you to get some rest. God knows, you need it. You aren't looking quite like your chipper self." It was clear the old man was trying to humor him, under the belief it was just the fever talking, and Daryl let him, too tired to call him on it. "I'll send Carol in with some broth in a bit. You're to eat it. And you're to take the medicine she'll administer as well."
Daryl nodded as his eye lids succumbed to gravity and slipped shut, allowing sleep to embrace him yet again.
As Hershel'd promised, Carol was sitting in the room when he woke up this time. She didn't notice he was awake at first. She was perched in the middle of the unoccupied bed, a small pile of clothes lying haphazardly on one side, a small stack of neatly folded clothes on the other, and in her lap was a lone garment she was mending. It appeared to be a shirt. Glenn's actually. He couldn't help but just watch her in this peaceful moment. Well, peaceful for her. She was intent on her work, sewing away, a look of calm serenity on her face alluding to the idea that she must be lost in thought, blissfully wandering along in a daydream of good memories.
He, on the other hand, wasn't feeling quite so serene. As much as he'd like freeze time and watch, to live vicariously in her tranquility, the reality of his body's discomfort was demanding to be acknowledged. Try as he might to push it away, squeeze it into the outer edges of his awareness, it was wasted effort. The aches and pains refused to be ignored, and Carol's sense of peace was lost on him. He couldn't share it with her.
He didn't want to disturb her, so he closed his eyes and allowed his whole reality to revolve around the pain, hoping that he might just fall back to sleep to escape it. He must have made some noise though, or maybe she just sensed his wakefulness, damn woman was spooky that way sometimes, because suddenly her hand was on his forehead, startling him. His eyes snapped open to meet hers staring back at him.
"Your fever's going back up. You feel warmer than you did earlier." She informed him, removing her hand from his forehead, and reaching over to the nightstand. "How are you feeling?"
"Pretty shitty, if I'm being honest." Daryl whispered, his throat too sore to maintain a normal speaking voice.
Carol opened a pill bottle and shook a couple out into her hand. "You need to take these, then eat this delectable broth I fixed up for you." She joked gesturing toward the bowl sitting on the nightstand with a smile, earning a bare hint of one from him in return.
She helped him to sit up a bit and rearranged the pillows behind him. He wasn't so much sitting as he was lying in a slightly inclined position. She placed the medicine in his hand, which he lifted shakily to his lips. The glass of water he had to contend with next proved more troublesome. His hand shook so badly under its meager weight that, just before he spilled it everywhere, Carol reached out her own hand, placing it over his, and steadying it as she helped him to drink.
The pills were hard to swallow, burning their way down his sore throat, but that was nothing compared to how hard it was to swallow the fact that he was as defenseless as Lori's baby would be when it was born. He couldn't even hold a cup of water by himself. He hated having to rely on others, hated that Carol had to see him this way, hated burdening the group with his illness. His weakness.
The bowl of steaming broth appeared in front of his face. He marveled at how Carol managed to do things like that. How was it still hot enough to be steaming? She hadn't left the room since he'd awakened, and judging by the pile of finished mending she'd been sitting there for quite a while as he slept. The woman was a conundrum. He didn't think he'd ever understand her.
Taking his silence for obstinacy, she began to urge him, her tone just this side of begging. "Daryl, please, you have to eat something."
She held a spoonful of the liquid in front of his lips. The look she gave him, one that to a person who didn't know her like he did was deceptively calm, but to him the masked desperation in her eyes shone through like a beacon. So he obeyed without a fight, let her feed him without resistance. And as much as it shamed him, he knew he wouldn't be able to handle the task himself right now, anyway.
"There's not much left. Just a few more bites. Please?" Carol prodded, when he'd finished half the bowl and refused any more. A week without food, in conjunction with this sickness, had shrunk his stomach considerably.
He shook his head tiredly. "I can't, Carol. I'm sorry, I just can't."
"It's ok, sweetheart. You did good." She set the bowl aside, picking up a damp rag from a second bowl instead. She began bathing his face and forehead with it, as she'd done so many times this past week.
Daryl stiffened at both the chill of the cloth and the contact. "Don't have to do that, you know."
"I know, I want to do this for you. I want you to get better. To feel better." Carol looked him straight in the eyes then, to be sure he saw the sincerity there. "I know you think you're a second rate citizen in this group, and that couldn't be further from the truth. Yes, your capabilities and knowledge make you a much needed asset, but that's not all we want you here for. We all care about you. I care about you. We're a family now, and like it or not, you're part of it."
At first, Daryl didn't know what to say. No one in this group was his blood. Dare he believe her words? But Carol'd never steered him wrong before, he doubted she'd start now. Meaning she believed what she was saying. And if she believed it…
A family. Wasn't that a fucking thought? Even when healthy he wasn't emotionally equipped to deal with this, and being sick just made it that much worse. So he did all he knew how to, and brushed it off. "You talked to Hershel didn't you?"
"He mentioned something about Maggie and Glenn's supply run being an unnecessary risk, yes." Carol admitted. "But, he only told me, and we don't plan on sharing that unfortunate opinion with any of the others. If you want anyone else to know what you think about it, you'll just have to tell them yourself."
He glared at her. She smiled at him.
He sighed and closed his eyes; he couldn't wait till he could keep the damn things open for longer than a few minutes at a time. "Go ahead. Have your fun at my expense." But there was no edge behind the words.
Carol chuckled a little. "I will." Daryl cracked an eye open to see her smiling brightly at him. He snorted at her, and closed his eye again. She was bathing his neck now. Even though the water was cold, it felt pretty good. Something he'd never admit to out loud.
He could feel himself teetering on the edge of sleep, and just as he was tumbling over, he vaguely registered warm lips press a gentle kiss against his temple, just as they had what seemed to be a lifetime ago. Carol's voice wafted over him in a gentle whisper. "I'm so glad you're doing okay. Get some rest, Daryl."