A/N: You all may be wondering what the $ *!&$ I was doing with the last few chapters. My feeling is, the past is like Merle's bounty from the convenience store: full of both useful information and sh*t that's just worthless hanging on to. But sometimes, you gotta pick something up, examine it, and determine if it's useful. Including pieces of yourself. ~ CeeCee
NB: This story is wrapping itself up, in my mind. I think we've got somewhere between 3-4 chapters to go…
He hunts terribly. The focus he normally reserves for tracking and aiming his crossbow has honed in on something else: Carol, last night, leaning in, teasing, the distracting scent of lavender and mint. Carol, this morning, walking with Tyreese, laughing, joking, slapping his arm. Carol.
Carol.
He's not sure that he saw her, really saw her until that day back at the Greene farm. When she threatened to take her friendship away. He's been thinking about that conversation (well, not sure you could call something so one-sided a "conversation", but…) a lot recently, he realizes. Because even in that moment nearly a year ago, he knew he'd be losing something valuable. And it wouldn't be down to walkers, or this unforgiving world they lived in now. It would be on him.
So he held on. He holds on. He holds on to what they have, which is unlike anything he's experienced in his life. A sense comfort he feels so deeply inside of himself, it has become a part of him. Something he's gotten used to and grown to rely on. Without knowing it.
He's been lulled by the easy nature of what they share, he understands now. Tyreese – or anyone else, truth be told - never crossed his mind as a threat to this balance until that morning after her knife class. For Daryl, all threats came from within. In his heart. In his capacity to care about her. To…love…her. To be…in love. With her. Carol.
For the past year, they've been swaying comfortably together, like holding onto a tire swing over a lake on the first day of summer. Just…swinging there. Happy to be flying through the air, because you know the water is going to be wonderful, but a complete shock to your system. But you can't swing forever. You have to jump.
Everything, with her, for him, has always been a matter of fear outweighing longing. He was happy to cling to their tire swing, to what he knew, because the water was cold and who knew how deep it was? Who knew what was lurking down there?
Not knowing terrifies him, and often obscures the desire he feels, seeing her smile or feeling the warmth of her hand on his arm. His fear is a real thing, a nasty, ragged creature comprised of self-loathing and bone-deep wanting. Fear has always beaten the delicate fingertips of desire away from his heart, but Daryl can feel them pressing, oh so gently, making themselves known, insistent.
Can't just swing forever, he understands.
It's terrifying to let go, but he must, because, because, because, more terrifying than jumping, plunging into unknown depths:
What if the water's gone? And he's left swinging, on his own?
oooOOOooo
He nods to the others as they stagger back into the prison, hauling their bounty. He wheels his bike around to the prison's machine shop, wanting to check a few things out. The bike is the last tangible connection to his brother. It hardly matters to him that, in life, Merle treated the damn thing with more care than he did people.
He sets to work on the bike, for the moment, thinking of nothing more than the task at hand. By nature, by nurture, he is a solitary creature most of the time, and a sort of contentedness washes over him as he tinkers in the late afternoon light, tossing his vest aside when he gets warm. He's just about to wrap things up and head to the kitchen to quell his rumbling stomach, when the kids show up.
The little girls. The one with the missing front tooth who cleared up the confusion about Carol's knife class. She has her arm slung around the other one's shoulder, the one with the black braids, who held his hand last night. So he would be less sad. Ellie.
He stands up, wipes the grease from his hands. Looks at them. Waits.
"Hi Daryl," Sarah pipes up. She's definitely the bolder of these two. "Can you help us?"
"What are you kids doin' out here?" Come to think of it, how'd they get out here? He and Rick we're going to have to assess how the doors were monitored in and out of the main living quarters.
"We need your help," Ellie echoes her friend, her face taken up by her solemn eyes.
"With what?" It comes out gruff, but he's curious. And willing to do almost anything these little scraps of humanity ask of him.
"You need to help us with the knives," Sarah says baldly. "Carol's starting the class again tomorrow, and we want to show her how good we are. Ellie and me."
Daryl looks down at them, standing there, huddled together. What are they? Seven, eight? They should be playin' with dolls or some shit. Whispering meaningless secrets to each other during recess. Learning their times tables, not how to wield weapons. And yet, here they are. Seeking help, for something that scares them. But something that's necessary, in this world. His heart squeezes again, and he sighs. Dinner can wait.
"Okay, let's go. We got about fifteen minutes of valuable daylight left. No messin' around. I ain't as nice as Carol," talking is hard around the lump in his throat.
"Yes you are!" Ellie exclaims, grinning broadly at him.
"I said no messing around," he growls at her, and she stops smiling, attempts looking serious. She turns and runs out into the yard with her friend, so she can't see the grin the pops up on his face.
It's time to jump.