AN: new chapter. FYI in case you missed it last chapter Ruby is Daryl's dog :)
I do not own or profit from The Walking Dead
Chapter 10
Ruby who loved everyone, loved Carol most of all. She trailed after Carol, never leaving her side. She'd give Daryl looks as though saying, I still love you but she needs me. If Carol sat, she was at her feet, if she was moving she was by her side. She stared up at Carol with a look of pure adoration of a dog could look at someone in adoration.
The night they had moved Carol in to the apartment above the shop, Ruby had whined a little when he'd called her to go home. She had slept at the apartment with Carol every night all week. He liked the thought that she was never alone.
They settled into a routine, very easily. That first day he'd insisted on cooking at least until her arm was improved. It was out of the sling now but still stiff and sore with limited movement. A week into her living in his back yard, and they were eating every meal together.
She was queit. He tried to put up a natural barrier to leave her thoughts to herself but her mind just held such a pull. Hearing her thoughts even the bad ones were comforting. She had a natural soothing energy. It was comforting, it made him feel as though he found the piece of himself he had been missing all his life.
It was a week into their new living situation she had her first nightmare. She had been very queit that day. More so than usual as they worked in silence in his shop. Her at his desk trying to make heads or tails of the mess of paperwork, him building. Her thoughts had been turbulent. Flashback filtering through her mind, without warning. Not just of that night but of all the bad nights with Ed.
He'd been welding when a particularly nasty vision had flashed in his mind. Of Ed being drunk and one night when he'd been particularly brutal when he'd raped her. He'd shut the welding torch of and taken a few deep breaths. Trying to calm himself. Trying not to drive to the jail and kill Ed that very moment himself, then gone out into the office to find her.
She was sitting at the desk staring off into space, a look of fear on her face.
"Carol" he called softly, scared to startle her.
She stayed still as though in a trance her fingers clasped in a fist turning white.
"Carol." He said again, she still wasn't hearing him. He knelt beside her chair, one hand turning her to face him.
"Sweetheart, that's over now." He whispered and she nodded, burying her face in his neck she still refused to cry.
That night he dreamed of that attack. Of watching helpless from the sidelines. Of screaming at Ed, that he would kill him. He woke with a start when he realized he was seeing her dream.
"Shit," he muttered throwing the covers off him, heading out to the shop barefoot with just a pair of sweat pants on. The shop had a security system and he entered the code then headed up the stairs to the apartment. Ruby met him at the door whimpering.
He rushed to the back of the room, where the bed was. She was thrashing in the bed. He's lid in bedside her, pulling her into his arms.
He opened his mind to her thoughts. He projected a scene to her. His favourite spot on the trail he liked to take Ruby. A lake that was bordered by wild flowers. She turned her face into his chest still asleep. Nuzzling her face. He felt her dream turn. He saw her, standing barefoot at the edge of the lake. Laughing as she watched Ruby happily splash. He was about to leave her to her dream, when he saw himself. Come up behind her and wrap his arms around her waist.
"Daryl" she whispered and he looked down realizing she was awake. "Stay?" She whispered.
He kissed her temple.
"Always."