Daryl watched the woman's every movement as his older brother berated her. She lowered her eyes ashamed of what she was being reduced to. It made Daryl sick. Sick that she was accepting it like a bitch and sick of his brother for treating her like one.
'She just got away fer Chrissake. Let the woman alone,' he thought while struggling to keep his brother from pounding in the old man.
"Fuck off Merle!" Daryl finally yelled overlapping everyone's heated voices forcing the sibling to stop and stare him down angrily before stalking back to their tent area. Daryl rolled his eyes and watched the women flock to Dale to soothe his anger.
For the next few days, things returned to normal. Merle made sure to say his snarky comments out of earshot from any of the other campers. Louie would silently listen without retort and didn't go crying like a regular woman would, Daryl noticed. She had honor. She knew they saved her life and if this was the price she would pay for being saved, then she would endure it. Honor. It was somewhat respectable in Daryl's eyes, but annoyed the shit out of him that she didn't stand up for herself.
She didn't speak to anybody and except a few words to Lori, she only confided in Dale. Louie regained strength in her voice but always spoke in an inaudible tone. She took residency by sitting on top of the RV with him whenever he was up there.
"I used to be somebody," she murmured, folding her arms around her legs as she tucked them under her chin.
"You still are," Dale quipped, his rifle poised on his shoulder, glancing over at her.
"I feel like everything that I was, what I use to be… was taken when they took me. I feel like it died with them too," she sighed.
"You can't start thinking like that even though it seems like the easiest solution. If everyone did that, where would we be?" Dale frowned.
"Dead," she answered. "Dale, I wish I was dead," she turned to look at him. Dale shook his head and sat down in the chair next to her.
"Only the dead have nothing to live for," his tone serious and stern.
"What do I have?" she lifted her head.
"Me," he smiled. She returned it weak and shakily.
"Hey! You got one job, old man! Stop fuckin' 'round!" a harsh southern accent barked from underneath them. The pair stared as Daryl Dixon sneered at them before disappearing. Louie rolled her eyes and put her head back on her arms.
"I could use a drink of water," Dale said removing his cap to let his scalp air out.
"Me too," Louie agreed. "I think we're running low. I'll go boil some more for tonight."
"Be careful," Dale said as she climbed down from the RV. Louie grabbed an empty steel pot that was sitting near the fire and heaved it to the quarry, nodding so often at a camper roaming around. She lugged the semi-heavy pot down the steep hill that ended at the body of water. Seeing nobody around, she decided to remove her sweats so that they wouldn't get wet and laid it on the rock where all the clothes were drying on. Her dress was long enough to cover what she needed without getting herself entirely wet. Louie waded into the water with the pot and carefully dunked it in to let it fill up. But what she didn't anticipate was as the water began to cascade into the pot, it began to get heavier, suddenly dragging her frail body under the water. Shrieking, she quickly emerged at the top soaking and dripping.
"You stupid?" she heard a voice ask. She looked up embarrassed out of her mind to see Daryl Dixon staring at her as if she had recited him complicated poetry. She stared at him in shock and disbelief and opened her mouth to say something, but quickly changed her mind to his dismay. He rolled his eyes and jumped off the rock he was perched on, into the shallow water towards her. She remained still and unmoving in the water when he neared. He dunked his arm towards the bottom, squinting in concentration to feel the handle and when he grasped onto it, he pulled it with all his force out of the water holding it out to her, full. She mumbled something in return.
"What?" He snapped not hearing her.
"What's your name?" she asked. Daryl realized she wasn't southern and had an accent similar to the blonde sisters. Probably California or some other dumb state that wasn't in the South.
"Ya' gonna take this or not?" he barked. When she only blinked, he rolled his eyes. "Daryl. Now take this stupid thing,"
"Thank you," she said and he knew it wasn't just for the pot. He muttered a 'whatever' and watched her receive the pot as well as her eyes widen as it fell back into the water with a deep 'kaplunk.'
"Jesus woman! The fuck told you to do this anyway? Chrissake, you ain't got one muscle in yer body," he yelled at her but she didn't flinch.
"My name's Mary Lou," she said before bending down to regain the pot.
"I din't ask," he spat. She didn't say anything as he took back control of the pot and carried it for her. "Where's this goin'?" he muttered. She motioned him to follow her back to camp and led him to the fire pit. She crouched down and with her hands scraped some nearby leaves together before picking up a matchbox nearby and striking the match to light a fire. She stood up and let Daryl place the pot over the low flame.
"Yer gonna need more than that," he said shaking his head in disappointment at her pathetic display of a fire. She nodded and wordlessly headed into the woods to probably gather some firewood. He stared at her retreating figure with annoyance. "Jesus," he groaned and followed her into the forest.
"D'you even know what yer lookn' for?" He shouted after her shrinking figure. She didn't respond but he knew she heard him, which annoyed him even more. He caught up to her and grabbed her arm to get her to halt; she had collected a few twigs so far. He grabbed the few pieces that was in her hand and tossed it behind his head causing her face to scrunch into a look of objection.
"Look fer the dead stuff- dry bark, dead leaves, shit like that," he commanded before moving off to gather some fuel, heavier logs.
She sighed and wordlessly complied, scouring the floor for dried moss or bark. She made sure to stay in earshot of Daryl while gathering firewood. She accumulated quite a load and as it started falling out of her fingers, she lifted the hem of her dress to cradle her findings. Daryl looked over his shoulder and saw her bare thighs flashing as the girl gathered sticks in her dress. She walked over to him gingerly attempting not to drop any of her load she found. Louie saw Daryl holding a few blocks of wood tucked underneath his arm and remembered her dream of the giggling girls.
"I had a dream about you," she said quietly as they agreed silently to go back to camp.
"What're you, a perv or somethin'?" he drawled. She snorted and he looked at her with semi-humor. "Ya' look a lot better," he finally said after a few moments of silence. She looked at him curiously. "When we found ya', ya' looked like something ya'd find at the bottom of yer boot,"
'Definitely brothers,' she mentally noted. They managed to make it out of the woods in one piece and returned back to the fire pit. Daryl heaved the pot of water to the side and crouched next to her to show her how to place the tinder around the fuel so that the flame would catch and burn longer. She mutedly paid attention and did what he told her to so she would get the flame to grow bigger and when she succeeded, she gave him a small appreciative nod.
"Never thought I'd see the day. Daryl Dixon, civilized citizen," Shane drawled as he neared the two. Daryl's mood seemed to turn fowl as his face morphed into disgust and he stood up, messily throwing the pot of water over the flames.
"If I left the women to run this shit hole, we'd all be dead months ago," Daryl cut back, stalking off to do something more productive with his time. Louie remained by the fire and watched the scene unfold; it all happened so quickly. One moment he was teaching her how to survive and the next he was insulting her. She blinked and wondered if all of that even happened or not.
"Don't waste your time on those men, honey," Shane said to her sternly. "They got more of a reason to act up now that the law is gone," he kept immense eye contact on his retreating figure. By the time he looked back down at her, she was gone. Shane frowned and rapidly looked around to see where she had slipped off to and should have guessed she was climbing back up the RV to sit with Dale. He kept his eyes on her for a moment longer, gave a snort and decided to look for Lori.
That night, Louie had her first taste of squirrel. She stared at it as if it were going to pull its body off the make-shift skewer and skitter up a tree. She tried to imagine the fur and bushy tail that usually accompanied squirrels when the apocalypse hadn't risen. Weren't they cute and playful? Did they have families? What were squirrels looking for in a partner? Did they mourn their loved ones when they were separated? Louie looked up and saw that everybody was staring at her intently as she was looking at her meal in fear.
"C'mon darling, it ain't gon' bite!" Shane yelled and everyone laughed. She looked uncertainly at everyone but the group's faces were encouraging collectively. She turned to look at Dale who was at her right but was quickly mocked-
"You don't need his permission!" the blonde woman, who Louie learned her name was Andrea yelled.
"Do it, do it, do it!" her sister Amy started chanting and persuaded to join in. Louie thought, What the hell, squeezed her eyes shut and sunk her teeth into the browned outline of the squirrel on the stick. Everyone around the campfire gave a harmonizing cheer and started clapping for her, silencing shortly after to hear her reaction. Everyone anticipated her response in silence.
"I'm a vegetarian," She finally said weakly giving everyone a reason to give uproar of laughter. What made her smile was Dale's cheerful laughter and his lively pat on her back.
"Not anymore honey!" Jacqui cackled and clapped her hands.
Daryl snorted from his position on top of the RV and returned to surveying the area. She probably went to the supermarket- no, had her maid go to the supermarket and bring her vegetables and cook them up for her the way she liked it. She probably was involved in saving orphaned animals and against animal testing or some shit like that. She probably rolled her pretty little eyes at fast food advertisements and made comments about animal cruelty. Daryl was angry that people like that survived the apocalypse and then he reminded himself that he helped her survive.
'Waste of time. She ain't gon' last long anyways,' he thought and watched everyone start to stand up getting ready to go to bed. He made eye contact with her, right before she entered the RV below him. Surprisingly he wanted to peer through the windows and see her face again. Maybe because he wanted to see how ugly she was or maybe because he felt like something needed to be said. But he restrained himself and resumed his duty. However, it became a secretive, subconscious ritual for Daryl Dixon. Even though he didn't see her when he woke up or even a peep throughout the daytime, he needed to see her face before she went to sleep; he needed her to be asleep before he was. He hadn't even realized he was doing it until one night he was heading to his tent to retire for the night and he had this weird feeling crawling up his back. It rested in between his shoulder blades and made him uncomfortable; he couldn't shake it off as hard as he tried. Intuition, he thought at first and tried to take the night shift from Dale to look for walkers.
"It's alright, I don't mind," Dale said passively and refused to give up his post.
"Just go old man, I got this," he snapped and Dale's voice rose to argue against his rudeness.
"Hey! What's goin' on?" Shane yelled as he crawled out of his tent, Lori's tent. Dale hastily explained to Daryl's annoyance and involved Shane in the heated argument. The noise started to rouse nearby dwellers and Jim and Louie inched out of the RV together. Daryl locked eyes with her sleepy, withdrawn gaze and felt the uneasy feeling in his shoulder blades fade and dissipate entirely as if it were sliding down his spine and crawling back into the woods. He left Shane and Dale's bellows unheard as he voicelessly and dazedly climbed down from the RV and withdrew to his tent. Baffled, he collapsed on his side of the tent ignoring Merle's loud snores and felt the uneasy feeling return; not to his spine but to his head. Why did he need to see her face so badly?