Chapter 12: I Know I Said I'm Sorry, But That's Not What I Meant To Say

Rick stares at Daryl incredulously, the man's question slapping him right in the face and jarring him to the core. He never imagined that Murphy would tell Daryl about their little incident the day prior; Murphy just never seemed like the tattling type. He shouldn't be surprised, though; something of that magnitude could never be locked up for long.

The words "I'm sorry" tingle on Rick's lips, almost push themselves out of his throat, but he realizes that he isn't actually sorry, not one little bit. He has nothing to apologize for.

Daryl stares at him with those watchful blue eyes, patiently waiting for an explanation.

"I did what I had to do, Daryl." Rick says, no hint of apology in his tone, and no regret.

"What's that even mean, Rick?" Daryl asks, his eyes narrowing slightly.

Rick sighs. It should be obvious what he meant by that, especially given their current circumstances, but Daryl's just sitting there, looking almost lost. Rick is suddenly annoyed by the man he's grown to love. He wants to grab Daryl's shoulders and just shake him for a few minutes, really rattle him up, see if that will help everything click into place in the redneck's mind.

He doesn't do that, though, because violence won't help in this situation. Rick's a calmer man, anyway, always has been.

Rick speaks slowly, keeping eye-contact with Daryl the entire time. "It was a scare tactic, a ploy. Sometimes the only way to make someone back down is to threaten them, you know? So that's what I did."

"You threatened Murphy t' make 'im leave me alone?" Daryl asks, his question sounding a lot more like an accusation than Rick thinks it should.

"No, I didn't threaten him; I made him a promise."

Daryl's eyes widen, the shock rippling through the blue waters, and Rick somehow knows he's just made the biggest mistake of his life.

"You're really gonna kill him." It isn't a question.

Rick swallows roughly, the bravado he had built up rushing out of him in one quick exhale. Will he really kill Murphy if he continues his affair with Daryl? The answer should be "no", but it feels a lot more like "yes."

Rick's eyes dart out to the sea of walkers just beyond the gates' horizon, tracks their movements as if it will somehow make things clearer in his head. He'd love nothing more than for Murphy to join that nameless crowd of the dead, blend into the background of nothingness and fade out of his and Daryl's lives forever, but that doesn't mean he wants to be the one to put Murphy there. Except he does.

Rick's not willing to admit it, not even to himself, but his only genuine smiles lately come from his fantasies of taking a knife to Murphy's throat or a gun to his head. And that terrifies him right down to the core, because he's never been a murderer, and he's never considered himself a jealous lover.

The only other time he felt this way was when Shane was going after Lori, trying to lay claim to Judith, who was just a nub in Lori's belly at that time. And he wouldn't label that as jealousy, because he had nothing to be jealous of. Lori was already his, and he just needed to make sure it stayed that way. She'd asked him to put a stop to Shane, anyway, all but saying the words "kill him." No, that wasn't jealousy, that was protecting what he'd rightfully gained, and there was nothing wrong with that.

"Rick." Daryl's voice brings the sheriff back to reality, his eyes snapping back to the redneck's.

There is a hardness in Daryl's eyes that's putting Rick on edge. Rick is about to lose everything, and he knows it. He feels like a drowning man desperately groping for a life preserver in open water, a million miles away from salvation.

"Are you going t' kill Murphy?" Daryl asks, his voice steady and surprisingly calm.

Rick blinks a few times, unsure of how to answer that question. He's not actively planning to murder the Irish lad, no, but he's a lot more than willing to send him to his God if he doesn't back off of Daryl. Just like he did to Shane when he didn't back off of Lori. Rick earned his place with Daryl, and no one's going to ruin that for him.

So he answers in the only way he can. "Not now. Not right away." Because that's the truth, or as much of it as he can say without a freighter's worth of explanation.

"Then when?"

"When you leave me for him."

Daryl snorts, something humorless and sad, and slings his crossbow over his shoulder. "Y'know what's funny, Rick?"

Rick cocks an eyebrow, the confusion written all over his face. "What?"

"The fact that you think you'll actually be able t' get that close t' him without me puttin' a stop t' ya." Daryl speaks as he rises to his feet, towering over Rick now.

Rick stares up at the man. Daryl's face is lined with determination, his eyes turned to ice, one hand curled around the strap of his crossbow, the other curled into a fist at his side. Rick has never been more frightened of the man he loves than he is now, and he feels the urge to just turn tail and run back to his cell, their cell, and wait until this whole thing blows over.

But Daryl's statement begs the question. "You're leaving me then?"

A miniscule smirk curves the corner of Daryl's lips as he sneers down at Rick. "Seems that way, doesn't it?"

And then Daryl walks away, leaving Rick stunned and staring in his wake.

Rick has gone completely numb. He has no energy left with which to rise to his feet and follow after Daryl, let alone blink. It's a wonder he's even breathing still, considering the fact that his chest feels like it's about to collapse in a heap of shattered bone fragments.

Daryl left him. For Murphy.

That strikes Rick right to the core, and suddenly tears are leaking down his face like waterfalls.

Daryl was the one who went behind Rick's back and cheated on him with someone else. Daryl was the one that ruined their relationship, tore things so far apart they could never be repaired. Daryl is the one who should be staring after Rick as he walks away after ending their relationship, not the other way around. Daryl is the one who should be sobbing and feeling like he's a breath away from an early death.

Daryl is the one in the wrong, but Rick is the one who lost everything.