DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of The Walking Dead. This is for entertainment purposes only.
A/N: I probably should have just combined this chapter with the last one but oh well. It was a good time to break. This story has been one heck of a hefty mess and so are these last remaining chapters. I'll explain more on the last chapter, which happens to be the next one. And by more, I mean it'll probably be like a paragraph long… Bear with me?
I also just wanted to say thank you to those of you who are reviewing. I apologize for not PM'ing you back personally but at this point I'll admit I really don't know what to say. Please don't hate me too much?
Pain.
Leah felt paralyzed, staring at the door that Daryl and Merle were behind. Skyler kept hugging her close. Leah didn't think it fully hit her yet—it didn't fully hit anyone yet. It was hard to believe and no matter how many times she was faced with it, it didn't matter. Because it was Daryl.
Andrea was explaining to everyone that Daryl was bit, that she didn't know when and she didn't know how but he was. Most of the conversations that were happening around her just flew right over her head. She didn't care what anyone was saying.
For a moment she thought that it could have all been prevented—that if she and Skyler would have stood their ground and stayed outside to keep fighting the walkers that Daryl would be okay. But she realized too that Daryl could have been bit before all of that and she wouldn't have known. The thought alone just made her that much more upset, more tears flowing.
Leah walked a little ways away from Skyler and the others and managed to crawl onto the hood of a car. Sophia approached her and tried to talk to her but Leah didn't want her there. She simply pushed her away by ignoring her presence. And Sophia got it because she walked back to the group.
Carl approached her now and Leah tried to push him away just as well. She tried to ignore him but he made it difficult to when he climbed up on the hood of the car beside her.
"Just go away," Leah mumbled as she hugged her knees to her chest.
"No, I'm not leaving," Carl began. "I'm staying right here because that's what you do when you love someone. You fight and you stay."
Leah slowly turned to look at him with tears in her eyes. She had grown close to him over all the time they had spent together but she never would have pictured those words coming from his mouth. They were only thirteen and yet times like these made them feel much older, made them grow up even more.
Carl grabbed her hand and squeezed it, "I'm sorry, Leah. I wish there was something I could do."
"Just don't leave," Leah whispered to him.
"I won't," Carl replied.
Leah pulled her hand back and threw her arms around him now, squeezing him in a hug and crying even more. She was a complete disaster. She wasn't ready for this. She wasn't ready to say good-bye to Daryl. She needed him in her life.
Her mom died the same way. Her mom had been bit. There was nothing Daryl could do for her mom then just like there was nothing she could do for Daryl now.
It was then that she recalled all the times where she lashed out at him, feeling that much worse knowing she shouldn't have because he always did everything he could. He did what he thought was best for her all the time.
And there was never a time she wanted him now more than ever.
Skyler was at an absolute loss. There was nothing she could do to help anyone at this point, not even Leah. And watching her retreat into herself, walking away from everyone, only made her heart ache that much more.
It hadn't sunk in yet, the news still fresh and lingering on the surface. Everyone's voices sounded as if they had been muted and Skyler felt like she had been dragged into some other unknown hell beside the one that they were already living with the ambling walkers around every corner. Walkers that could apparently bring down anyone.
Skyler shook her head in attempt to shake the thought. Even with the injuries Daryl had it was hard to believe he was bit. None of it made any sense, though she supposed there wasn't any sense to be made of it. It was just cold hard facts now. Cold hard facts she didn't want to face.
By the time Skyler was able to break herself from her thoughts for a moment, she realized everyone had fallen silent. She glanced around to see who was around her for the first time since the walkers had been taken care of. Everyone was accounted for except for Maggie, Hershel, Beth, and Glenn. Then she remembered that Maggie had been shot.
"Is—is Maggie okay?" Skyler forced the words from her mouth as she looked over in Rick's direction. She looked to him more so than anyone else in the group, other than Daryl, whether he was still considered the leader or not. In fact, the Grimes family was the only ones left in the group that she truly felt like they were a part of her own family—with the way Daryl and Rick had become pretty close, she had Lori, and Leah had Carl.
Rick nodded, "She'll live. Might be a little while before she's back on her feet but Hershel said everything looks okay."
Skyler chewed at the corner of her mouth, registering Rick's words while still in a slight haze. Her subconscious thoughts were tearing at her. One in particular arose to the surface of her mind and she felt sick for even thinking it… But there was a slim part of her that wished she could trade Daryl and Maggie's fate. And just for thinking it, she felt like she could throw up. That wasn't her—this new world had made her think in ways she never would have before. She wished now more than ever that she could just go back in time to when she had her sister, apologize for all the stupid shit she had ever said to her, and spend every waking moment with her and Daryl, Leah, her husband, and her daughter.
She still couldn't figure out what was going to happen, what she was going to do. Losing Daryl meant that Leah had lost everyone who meant anything to her. Now all they had was each other.
No, Daryl was still alive. Maybe not for much longer but he was still living and breathing. Skyler refused to let herself think like that. But all she did know was that she would protect Leah the best that she could, make sure nothing happened to her or Skyler herself. Because Leah needed someone just as much as Skyler did.
Maybe it was selfish for Skyler to feel that way too. She was well aware she wasn't the only one to lose someone she loved. Over all the time she had spent with this group they had lost nine people. Nine lives that had just been taken right from under them, most of them having been from walkers. First it was Dale, then Alex, Jimmy, and Patricia. Shane had gone off the deep end and made an escape in all the chaos only to return and ultimately kill Amy and Lucas, having shot Amy and Lucas stayed with her. Shane met his match with the herd of walkers. Then they lost T-Dog and Olivia to Woodbury, and now Daryl.
It occurred to Skyler then that Andrea didn't know anything that happened over all of that time. She didn't know what happened to her sister just like Skyler didn't know what had happened to Elena. But Andrea would learn the truth soon enough. It was all too familiar.
It was dead silent now as everyone just kind of stood around, lost in a daze with their stare fixed on some random object. In a way it only made matters worse. The silence could be respected while everyone was reflecting on their thoughts but it almost drove Skyler a little insane. The more she let her mind drift, the more thoughts kept popping into her head, the more scenarios she tried to run through, the more she regretted things. She needed someone to speak up, to say anything at this point just to give her something to focus on, to tear her from her thoughts.
But then the door to the room opened, pulling Skyler's attention in that direction as she watched Merle exit and close the door behind him. She felt like her heart had stopped if only for just a short moment, staring at the older Dixon, the Dixon brother she hardly knew other than some foggy memory of what he had looked like before all of this. She was waiting for him to announce to the group that Daryl was dead but he never said a word. Merle just walked away from the room, made direct eye contact with Skyler, and gave her the tiniest of nods before hanging his head in despair, his shoulders slightly slumped forward.
Even though Skyler didn't know Merle on a personal level, she could see the difference in him. Physically, he looked like a man no one wanted to mess with. A man that could tear a person to shreds if he so desired. Even with just a simple glare. That was something the two brothers certainly had in common. But watching Merle walk out of that room with a look of absolute defeat, he no longer seemed so threatening in the way he carried himself.
That was when it started to feel real.