Disclaimer: Don't own 'em
Notes: Massive thanks to all the readers/reviewers faves and follows! :) There's a LOT of Daryl Fics out there it means a lot to me that you guys would sit through not one but TWO of mine! ;D (especially with an OC as the main interest!)
Chapter Sixteen
(Daryl's POV)
He's exhausted, no sleep the night before and very little the past few weeks taking their toll.
It's hard enough under the best circumstances to track someone who knows what they're doing out in the woods. Someone who knows enough to be careful where they place their feet; what they brush against…it's not impossible to follow someone with such skills but it takes more time. Far more time to trace the evidence and track her progress then it takes for her to leave the trail in the first place...it's why he couldn't stop for sleep, regardless of whether she did or didn't stop the night before he has to push on—try to lessen the distance between them before she crosses a road or water. If she moves up or down a road or stream leaving no trace—possibly for miles he'll have no idea which direction to follow...could lose hours or days combing unfamiliar banks or grass medians in the woods desperate for some small sign of where she returned back softer ground escaping back into the woods.
He pauses again, bent low to inspect a track that might be hers...it's faint, and based on the dew collected over the leaf at its edge it's as old as last night; maybe early morning. He has to scour the ground; the branches and leaves each time he passes a mark that might be her, rule out the possibility of animal trails and Walkers, and a smattering of false trails she's left behind to throw him off.
And because it's her he not only has to check the first three feet of branches and leaves and marks in the dirt; he's got to keep checking the trees too; well aware that she could be hiding up a tree; just as comfortable there as she is on the ground. He half wondered if he'd find her during the night sleeping on a branch or just sitting in one waiting to shoot him in the back as he passed by…
Not that he really thinks she'd shoot; not when she sees it's him…
But she was freaked out enough to run…
If she really is terrified enough to think he'd actually hurt her and he presses her at the wrong moment… No.
He can't believe that.
He could never hurt her. He has to believe that she feels the same and that's why she ran. If she meant him harm she'd have ambushed him in the middle of the night when he was the most vulnerable; or left the handful of Walker's he's found already dead wandering around for him to worry about sneaking up on him in the dark.
Hell Girl could have sent the Walkers right to him if she wanted.
Carl said she'd been having nightmares, terrible ones. She screamed at Carl for even mentioning his name… he's never heard her scream at Carl...ever. If anyone had asked him months ago if that was even possible he'd have laughed in their face. Fin's always treated Mika and Carl as if they were her own family; Hell sometimes she treated that little girl the same way Carol did...as if she were her own kid. Girls got a temper on her to be sure; not like he doesn't…
God knows it's a good thing they didn't fight often; they could take the whole warehouse down laying into each other if they ever really got going, no doubt attract every Walker for miles with the volume of their words. He remembers all to clearly the time Luke and that Asshole Chris showed up and the fights it caused...admittedly because he stepped in it big time misunderstanding their relationship from the start. He never thought he'd be a jealous man, took him too damn long to figure out that's what the ugly feeling twisting around in his gut was in the first place...but that didn't change the fact that the fights had been malicious and beyond painful...
Girl could probably have given his brother a run for his money with her smart mouth...knew just what to say to make it really count... Shit they both fought a little dirty…
It wasn't something he was proud of...just a hard habit to break after his Father's sharp barbs twisting through every memory of his childhood...and Merle's off-color comments following him long after, always tear'n him down. His father had been a fucking wordsmith when it came to being drunk and ugly. He knew how to hit and make it hurt, Daryl'd learned that tactic from the best.
But to actually lose her temper with Carl… She's got to be in a bad way.
If it's anything like the last few weeks for him he can understand her falling apart so hard. He's never hurt so hard in his God Damn life.
He remembers with a wash of sensation he wouldn't quite call nostalgia all those songs he used to hear the first lyrics to while drivin'round with Merle; he recognized them not cause they were particularly good; or because he liked them and wanted to hear them-but for the way Merle would react to them every time.
Merle'd snarl at on the radio like the beginning words were an ugly slur personally aimed at him. It happened too many times to just be a particular mood Merle was in; God knows he had those too while they were going nowhere; just wandering around looking for Merle's next score. Merle'd be sweating, shaking and cussing; sometimes barely lucid at all but he'd find the strength to damn them all, cuss at them for being pussy whipped bitches before he'd jam his finger against the knob hard enough to break something changing the station…
And he'd say nuthin because they didn't make sense to him either. They weren't real in the same way that fairytales didn't exist. They didn't fill him with the irate fury that struck Merle, more a sense immeasurable loss over something he knew would never be his... pussy whipped bitches or not those songs were about something powerful they couldn't score; no matter how many street corners they stopped at. They'd never steal or earn enough cash to buy that kind of high.
Now all those words, all the fuss and hype he used to desperately ignore; or observe in uncomfortable silence; they've started making sense.
If his brother was still here today and dared calling him a pussy for tracking her out here he'd tell him to shut his fucking mouth and maybe shut it for him.
Merle never understood the words, because he never had a girl like her.
He gets now with a wicked understanding he was never afforded before just how overwhelming love can be. How it could make a man want to live; or die with just a few simple words, launch a thousand ships, forsake friends and family and old habits-all without even stopping to consider the loss-or even feeling it. Shit, as wrong as he was he can see now how Shane could lose his damn mind; trying to kill his own best friend for a woman that wasn't his...and how Rick even furious as he was over her betrayal almost didn't come back from the edge of insanity-not even for his own son and newborn daughter, too lost in the painful reality of Lori's death.
Love's some deeply scary shit.
It could destroy them both if they let it.
He frowns searching the space beside a tree trunk craning his head back to check the branches. They're empty, but there's a strip of bark scrapped loose just over his head; the branches overhead the perfect angle, nearly perpendicular to the ground and thick as his waist.
He moves another thirty feet searching. She barely leaves evidence she's passed through except for when she must know he's close; when she's physically running from him, throwing subtle movement aside for distance; even if the movement makes him faster as well.
The soft kicked up depressions between the trees broadcasting loud and clear her quickened effort to put more distance between them.
Like that's going to help. Girl could run halfway across the state of Georgia and he'd still follow, as long as there's a trail.
Even if there wasn't, he'd spend the rest of his life moving in endless ever stretching circles searching for the one that got away.
:: Walking Dead ::
Daryl stops at the edge of the street, sitting against the overgrown weed lined curb banking the tree line to rub at his tired eyes. The beginning of an exhaustion headache building there the last few hours adding to the strain of sore muscles, the overall sensation of being worn too thin. He's been trying so hard to think like her the last two days.
Hell he's been doing it so often the last few weeks; immersing himself in her headspace; trying to see things the way that she would every time he's ventured out searching for some them it's become almost second nature now. Not that it's done him a licka'good; no matter how hard he searches or how far and fast he pushes himself to move, it remains a infuriatingly fruitlessly search. Only the minutest marks remain to hint of her passing through; and none of them feeling any closer than the day before.
One or both of them is going to pass out from exhaustion or dehydration or hell a nervous fucking breakdown if this doesn't end soon.
The fact that they've hit the neighborhood development outside a town following the path she took through the woods doesn't bode well for his search, it's that hardtop surface that he feared.
Pavement doesn't leave marks.
There's no vehicles that he can see—none that would run at least.
No Walkers either.
It's late now, night not far off—maybe an hour at most two before real darkness overtakes him.
He needs to rest, before exhaustion causes him to make a fatal mistake out here alone, with no one the wiser and no help for miles-no real certainty of his actual location a simple mistake could go from bad to worse fast. She needs to rest too wherever the hell she is; Walkers might not pose a danger to her; of that he's grateful but they've moved so fast the last 48 hours he doubts she's had time to eat; catch more than a few snatches of sleep—if she slept at all. Between running and her nightmares she's got to be as torn down as he is.
When he catches her they might have to sleep for a week.
He needs to circle the edge of the trees again before nightfall see if he can find her before it's too late. Girl won't do anything so stupid as to light a fire and give herself away; but he knows the kind of branches she likes to use—and while he doubts she's carrying a tent out here now; he remembers her taking simple hammocks out with them on more than one hunting trip. Climbing up a tree in the early morning and literally lying in wait for a deer or some other game to pass beneath them so she could take them down. A hammock would be light; easy to carry and stuff into a bag, it would also keep her out of eyesight if anyone she didn't know wandered by; anyone who didn't know to look up.
He climbs back to his feet, starting back through the trees to the last place he caught her print, some twenty feet from the grassy edge lining the now overgrown side yards at the end of this street. The trees here are sparse; not many of them old enough or baring enough thick branches at the right angle she'd need.
It's like searching for a needle in haystack.
He pauses again, sees his mistake suddenly with crystal clarity; it's blaringly obvious and he might have thought of it sooner if he wasn't so damn tired. He turns back from the trees to stare at the open empty street pondering this flash of insight.
Nobody knows her as well as he does and she knows that.
She's been using that knowledge to stay one step ahead of him.
Girl's smart. Maybe smarter 'n him…he wouldn't bet money on it that's for damn sure. But it aint just smarts: she's cunning as well. Especially now; when she knows she's being hunted: knows it's him following her and just what he expects her to do…
She's just smart enough to do the exact opposite.
Forsaking everything he'd ever expect just to throw him off course. By acting contrary to everything he knows about her she can hide in safety and rest while he runs himself half-dead searching in circles… and that means forgetting the forest; forgetting the trees… he can't find her out here because she's in the last place he'd ever think to look for her.
There's a damn good reason he lost her tracks in the woods.
She's in a house.
Daryl moves out of the trees and circles back to the start of the neighborhood. He moves through the houses in the stretching twilight, his eyes sweeping the ground searching for patterns or disruptions in the bits of gathered dead leaves and random dustings of debris the surface has gathered over time—the littered street not nearly as impartial to a trace of her movement as he once thought, he pauses briefly glancing over the first few houses for any sign of her passing through.
The lawns are long past overgrown. Their weeds standing well past knee high; some of their tangled frawns tall enough to brush his waist as he passes through them searching door to door for signs of life—evidence of recent enough trespassing to be her.
He's almost given up—the sky is just barely tinted with pink and orange through the trees. The aqua steadily deepening further to an indigo purple and azure blue just proceeding the heavy fall of night hanging over his head is an ever present warning of the time; the coming darkness that will soon be upon him and without shelter, the vulnerability that follows with it.
He's about to pick a house for himself smash one of the small square panels in another nearly identical backdoor and use the last few tendrils of daylight to ensure it's cleared out and safe before he passes out when he sees the curtains in the house across the street move.
He turns his head shifting his feet tracking the movement crossbow raised realizing it's the breeze ruffling his hair also moving the curtains.
The windows on that house are all opened—more than a crack; but not wide enough for a Walker to crawl through easily. All the other houses remain shut up tight. He can only imagine the stifling heat and stale air that fills them after the scorcher they had today—hopefully one of the last before fall breaks the heat permanently. He's tired of stepping outside only to feel like he's melting.
He abandons the house he was approaching moving across the deserted street toward the only house he's found that's different. Because that's got to mean something.
The weeds bent over the front walk are undisturbed like all the rest so he circles toward the back; finds the weeds before the back gate bent and broken—the gate not latched cracked a scant inch he presses his palm to it cautiously peering inside for Walkers—finding none he pushes it open with his toe crossbow up and ready.
The yard is short, square, overgrown and empty.
He pulls the gate quietly shut behind him, ensuring the latch catches on the inside before moving forward. The windows here are wide open drawing a cross breeze through the house cooling it with the moving air. The slowly encroaching night finally leaching some of the heat from the evening air, offering him some relief wafting over his skin with the same gentle currents of cooler air now shuffling through the trees overlooking the fenced yard.
He pauses by each window. Peering inside to check the rooms, finds them fully furnished to the point of clutter—but otherwise empty.
He moves to the small square patio checking the back door—another nearly identical sliding French door with a shitty lock. Merle used to love these damn things liked to brag about the times he made a damn good profit jimmying open back doors and jacking new appliances and copper wire from the new neighborhoods going in…'til he nearly got caught doing it one night—and not by the police; by one of the builders foremen with a shotgun…driving Daryl's truck no less. Bastard never even paid him back for the shattered back window.
Daryl shakes his head and braces his arm against the door, giving it a constant pressure before lifting with his other hand. It pops open with a little brute force and a metallic snap. He pauses crossbow ready listening to himself breathe, to the trees moving behind him in the night breeze staring into the empty silent house wondering how long he should wait before he ventures inside into the near dark searching for Walkers.
Somewhere inside the house she screams.
Now he knows what they mean when they say blood curdling because the sound is ice water to his veins, kicks his heart into overdrive; slamming against his ribs, pulse pounding in his ears so loud it's a drum beat threatening to drown out everything but his racing hear; and her terrified cries.
He calls for her, shoving the door open the rest of the way his crossbow up and ready racing down through the empty kitchen and living room to the short hallway, the sound of her screams infinitely louder now. He shoves open door after door ready to kill whatever or whoever is hurting her.
He freezes in the last doorway watching her thrash and cry out in her sleep. The room is empty; there's only her. Yet watching her twist and scream face contorted in pain and fear he knows even alone she's under attack; but it's not something he can fight.
He drops his crossbow beside the bed kicking the door shut behind him since he left the back door wide open; there's no way he's going back out there now; at least he shut the back gate. He's got to get her quiet first.
Someone or something could hear her probably for miles...
He kneels next to her hip trying to shake her awake with no response his insides clawed and raked by every desperate plea she makes to monsters that aren't real. He clasps his hands against the bed watching her struggle feeling extraordinarily helpless, as he hasn't in a long while before doing the only thing he knows that works.
Because she doesn't have nightmares when she's with him.
He pulls his knife off his belt just in case and tosses it onto the nightstand beside the bed and lays next to her catching her thrashing hands in his, pulling her close and begging her to wake up.
:: Walking Dead ::