Two Different Worlds

Daryl

They sat in silence, one hand pressed over her smooth lips and the other resting on her shoulder. A cure…he could barely wrap his head around it. He hadn't even bothered to ask what it was, sure that he wouldn't comprehend the medical jargon anyways.

The walker that bumped against the door wandered away and he felt her breathe a sigh of relief. He removed his hands from her and crossed the room to get some blankets to put on the floor.

His eyes finally adjusted to the dark room and he saw her lay down on the bed. Daryl spread one or two blankets on the floor and stretched out on them. It had been difficult for him to sleep lately, so he laid there staring up at the ceiling. Usually he found himself thinking about Merle or one of his friends that he'd lost. If he was in an even rarer mood, his mind might drift to his father. Many of the childhood memories were repressed by then, but in his mind he caught glimpses of his mother getting thrown into the trailer wall. His father would swear, breath reeking of alcohol and cigarettes. It was a smell that seemed to sink into everything. They carpet, couch, and even Daryl's clothes constantly gave the tell-tale signs of an abusive household. It went unnoticed, however. Many (if not most) of the other kids at Daryl's small public school dealt with the same misery.

The smell of illicit drugs was reserved for their shed behind the trailer, and their father threatened to kill them if they ever dared to enter. Once, Merle somehow convinced Daryl to sneak into the shed with him and one of Merle's friends, Jimmy. Daryl remembered that he was thirteen at the time, the age where younger siblings always want to be involved in whatever the older ones are doing. It was that day that he got high for the first time, and Merle left with Jimmy while they laughed their asses off.

He was lying on the floor when his father entered later that night. His father broke his promise that night- he delivered a beating that all but killed Daryl, and he remembered wishing that it did. After that day, the drugs and alcohol became Daryl's own compulsion for survival in his world.

Daryl looked over to Sarah when she started making whimpering noises in her sleep and speaking incoherently. He had spent enough time with his own group to realize that just about everyone had nightmares these days. Everyone except Daryl; he didn't dream much.

The whimpering got louder. He tossed the blankets off of him and walked around the bed, contemplating what exactly to do. Wake her up and bring her from her apparent terror or let her be? He sat on the bed beside her, trying to decide while the moonlight illuminated her pale skin.

The comfort of the bed overwhelmed him when he sat down; it was something he hadn't had the chance to enjoy in so long. Before he knew it, he was laying down right beside her. At this point, he hoped she didn't wake up. The last thing he wanted was to give their potential lifeline the idea that he was trying to get some.

Daryl was just about to doze off when she shot up gasping for air. She looked around like a crazy person, eyes finally setting on him. He sat up a bit, nervous that she would say something about the fact that he was in bed with her.

"Bad dream, huh?" he managed.

She looked a bit disoriented, but after a few seconds, answered "Yes…I can't remember the last time I had a good night's sleep. It's probably a good thing I'm not sleeping in Rosalyn's room right now. She tends to get cranky when I wake her up while talking in my sleep."

"You don't think it bothers me?" he was joking, but she gave him a hurt look. He changed the subject. "What's her problem anyways, kept giving me dirty looks all afternoon."

Sarah yawned and propped herself up against the headboard, making no mention of the fact that he was laying on the same bed as her. "Well, she's a bit alternative and thinks you're an animal killer…she doesn't understand how that's necessary now. Rose was a love child and her parents are basically hippie's still. Or were." She paused for a few seconds and continued. "I remember being shocked whenever I went over to her house. Their whole family was well to do and everything, but nothing went to waste. And I mean nothing. Everything you could possibly think of was reused. It's not a bad thing, of course, they were just a bit excessive." Sarah gave a small laugh, her straight white teeth shining in the dark.

'City folks…' Daryl thought. "Yeah well we'll see how long Ms. Going Green lasts when your canned shit runs out." Once again, he bit his tongue. He hoped that his quick mouth hadn't offended her.

Thankfully, she only gave a noncommittal shrug. "It's never bothered Marco and I. We still eat our meat every day."

"Just like a real Italian."

"Yeah," she smiled again. "His family's been tied to the mafia his whole life. It was pretty dangerous; his dad taught him how to shoot guns when he was pretty young. My parents hated that I was friends with him of course; they didn't like me dealing with their kind or really doing anything potentially dangerous. It's probably why he and I stayed friends so long, to be honest. I disobeyed my parents really often and I was such a spoiled only-child brat. They really didn't even deserve the way I acted to them, now that I think about it. My dad was a CEO and paid my way through Harvard's med school as long as I got the grades on my own. I regret so much of it now…I hate the way I treated everyone in my family."

"No use regretting things ya can't do anything about," he told her, looking at his hands. He thought of his brother again. "I lost my brother, Merle, a while back. We were never close, but he was the only kin I had left." His voice was as empty as his heart; he and Merle were brothers, sure. But never close.

"I'm sorry," she said, giving him a pitying look. He suddenly wished he hadn't told her anything about himself; he hated feeling others' sympathy. She continued speaking. "The four of us have been so fortunate…I mean I have my two best friends still and Scott is like a father to us. I haven't been able to contact my parents in New York, though. I hope they're still there when I go back. Maybe they made it somewhere safe."

"Our group hasn't been nearly as lucky, we've lost a lot of people." Daryl continued on to tell her about Sophia and what happened at Hershel's farm. He even told her about Shane and Rick, their new dictator. "We lost a lot of hope after Sophia and Dale passed. And after the farm got attacked…" he looked down at his hands.

Sarah's eyes looked watery. "That's horrible…It sounds like we've been living in absolute paradise compared to your people." She dabbed at the tears and suddenly changed her tone of voice to one of wonder. "I can't believe you survived an arrow going through your stomach. Can I see it?"

Daryl thought about asking if she could handle it, but then felt foolish. 'She's a damn doctor, of course she can handle it.' He lifted up his shirt and showed her the place where the tip pierced through. She leaned over and squinted through the darkness. "Wow, Hershel did an amazing job fixing you up. You're lucky that you had him around, not many people could patch this up without some sort of training."

He flinched at her icy touch when she ran her fingers over the stitches. Daryl thought she would be warm, but was terribly wrong. "Dammit woman, cold hands."

"Bad circulation, mostly just my hands and feet," she explained apologetically. "You'd think that since I came from the north I'd be a little more used to the cold. Maybe I was always meant to end up somewhere like Georgia where it's hot out all the time."

As Sarah folded the covers back over her arms, he wished she would have left them on his side, touching his badass scar. Although it was shockingly cold, it had been a long time since he felt the touch of a woman…at least two months before the first day of the end of the world. It was with Britney, the local trailer park whore. He remembered her oily dark hair and anorexic-looking body on her bed beneath him. He thought of the way she didn't even look at him or say anything.

The girl next to him now was the exact opposite it seemed, not that he even knew her that well. She closed her eyes, but continued to lie on her side facing him. He felt overcome by the want to trace her body with his warm hands and it took all his willpower to stop himself from acting on it. He reminded himself that she expected him to be "respectable".

As if to read his mind, she said, "You can sleep here up too, by the way. It's probably been a while since you were on an actual mattress…and you seem trustworthy enough."

Daryl was glad she clarified. He watched her for a bit while she fell back to her slumber, not knowing quite what to think of her. He was the opposite of a city person; that much was true. 'She went to Harvard, grew up in a billionaire flat, and wouldn't have given me the time of day then. Why should I be friendly to her now?' he thought, settling on the idea that she must have been a snob before. The only reason she wasn't now had to be for survival. Somehow, he still doubted the notion.Or maybe he just hoped it wasn't true.

She was obviously book-smart if she was a doctor, but she seemed lacking in the common sense department. Using a pill bottle to fend off a zombie? He smirked at the memory of earlier that day.

Her breathing became heavy and he could tell that she was falling back asleep. Her long eyelashes splayed against her cheeks. Without an explanation, Daryl suddenly felt very self-conscious. He wondered if she could tell that he hadn't showered in several days, especially because she happened to look so clean. He tried to ignore the thoughts, but found himself in the cold shower a few moments later.

Daryl returned to the bed shirtless, almost intentionally making noise so that she would wake up and see his muscular torso, as well as his other scars. Again, he wasn't sure why he felt the need to do this. Perhaps, the idea of trying to impress a girl just seemed so normal, so pre-apocalypse. Maybe he just wanted to regain a little normalcy in his life. She was still breathing deeply when he laid down beside her once more, putting himself in a propped-up position against the headboard. For the last time that night, he studied her.

The loose blue tank top she wore showed an ample amount of cleavage, which didn't help him to erase his thoughts about sex. A few strands of hair were in her face and he held his breath while he carefully pushed them back, hoping she was a heavy sleeper.

She was probably the prettiest girl he'd ever seen in person; her kind just didn't grow up in the places that he did. The places that were never meant for beautiful people to inhabit. Daryl thought on this a few moments until he drifted off to sleep. For the first time since he could remember, he dreamt.