setting: episode 6 "Hounded"

Damnation

Chapter 27 - Survivor

They were checking the cell block in which they had found T-Dog's body and Carol's scarf just the day before. Connor supposed that she was dead as well, but he knew how much the woman meant to his friend so he kept following them and tried to help wherever he could. They had been killing walkers all morning, now that Axel had managed to get the generators to work again and now that there was light it was way easier for them than last time. The corridors still sent a shiver down the Irishman's spine. He couldn't stop thinking about the attack from yesterday, the fight, the walkers on top of him, his dream about Murphy. He instantly grabbed the back pocket of his jeans and looked at Daryl, who was walking in front of him. He had not told his friend about the picture yet, and he didn't want him to know that he had taken it out of the grave. He still couldn't bring himself to let go of his brother just yet, and he needed his picture to remember him the way he wanted to. He had only buried the knife and put the rosary on top of the cross, knowing that he could get it back whenever he wanted. The hunter had given him a new knife, but it still felt wrong, he still felt naked without Murphy's. In the end it had been the object he could let go of, no matter how much it still hurt. He had also given some of Murphy's clothes to Axel, although that still made him furious. He was sure that his brother would kill him if he knew that a former convict was now wearing his clothes, but Axel was a good guy and needed something, considering that he had lost everything to this strange apocalypse.

Oscar, the other survivor from the prisoner group wasn't too bad either, as he had saved Rick from Andrew and was now helping them with all the walkers.
So that was a big bonus as well. They had just made their way around a corner when the prisoner noticed another moving steel door.

"Check it out, man" he said and pointed at it.

Connor was on his way to check for walkers when Daryl placed a hand on his chest and shoved him back without looking at him.
The Irishman huffed and wanted to protest, but his friend was already standing in front of the door and started it shaking it gently.

"Must have missed them last night" the third man of the group muttered and Daryl just looked at the door. Connor snorted.

"Probably got scared and hid in a closet when they saw 'im go crazy with the axe."

Daryl turned around and glared at his friend. He nodded at Carl, who was standing right behind them. Connor bit his lip and looked at Rick's son again.

"Sorry. I just meant..cos yer Da's a real badass, aye?"

Carl just nodded gently, but the usual smirk and appreciation wouldn't come this time.

"It's probably just one or two of 'em. Don't look they got much fight" Daryl said and tried to change the subject, but not without giving Connor a disapproving head shake.

He started walking again and his friend followed him with a growl.

"What. I was just trying t'cheer us up a bit.." he muttered, but Daryl ignored him.

And truth be told, he didn't feel to cheery either. He was still upset because of the grave thing with Murphy's stuff.
And he still had a throbbing headache from yesterday. He watched his friend leave and headed for the next bunch of doors.

"They ain't going nowhere. We'll take care of it on the way back" Daryl muttered and Connor shrugged.

He didn't really want to fight today, so he kept walking as well.

The hunter approached Carl, who was still standing in a corner and looked down with a blank look on his face.
Daryl whistled once and the kid startled.

"Come on" he demanded and Carl followed him.

Connor just watched the two of them, and he understood what his friend wanted. He had tried to cheer Carl up all morning but without any luck, so he hoped that Daryl could be of more use today. He had already helped the Irishman a lot, so maybe this was his day to work some wonders. The Irishman stayed behind them and checked the cells with Oscar, but at the same time he tried to keep up with the other two so he could hear what Daryl and Carl were talking about. Connor approached the prisoner after a while and lit a smoke.

"Ye know, never thought I'd ever work with a criminal. Time's changed, aye?" he muttered and tried to make conversation with the man.

Oscar frowned and eyed the Irishman head to toe.

"Aren't you the guy Andrew knew from the news?"

The blonde smirked and blew out some smoke.

"Guilty."

"Didn't he say you broke outta prison yourself?"

"Aye."

The prisoner snorted.

"Then why am I the only criminal then? Make it sound like it's a bad thing. You ain't no different from me."

Connor chuckled but wouldn't say anything to that, now that he noticed that Carl and Daryl were further up front to a point where he could no longer hear what they were talking about. He walked a bit faster because he wanted to know how his friend was going to handle the whole Carl issue, now that he obviously didn't like his version of dealing with depressing things. The hunter pointed his flashlight at all sorts of dark corners and wouldn't look at Carl, but he still started talking.

"You know, my mom, she liked her wine. She liked to smoke in bed. Virginia Slims."

Connor snorted behind him. Daryl turned around and glared at him.

"Got a problem, asshole?"

The Irishman smirked and shook his head.

"No, everything's fine, officer" he answered and blew some smoke in Daryl's face. The hunter narrowed his eyes but decided not to start fighting.
He turned around and checked more cells for walkers. After a minute or two he started talking again and Carl followed him.

"I was playing out with the kids in the neighborhood. I could do that with Merle gone."

The Irishman listened up. Daryl never really spoken about his brother, and even after over 6 months of being together he hardly knew anything about his friend's past or family. He had practically told the hunter every last detail about his life by now, simply because he could never stop talking and because he loved to tell stories, but Daryl had never been like that at all.

"They had bikes, I didn't. We heard sirens gettin louder. They jumped on their bikes, ran after it. You know, hopin t'see something worth seeing.
I ran after them, but I couldn't keep up."

Connor kept following them and didn't even need to try hard to imagine what the whole scenario would have looked like. He imagined younger Daryl to look just like Murphy when they had been little. Of course he would have looked like his brother when they had been younger, the hunter was practically a perfect copy of his twin. And just thinking about how little Daryl would run after guys on bikes, but all on his own, made his heart ache. Murphy never would have been in that sort of situation, simply because he always would have been there to protect him. They had never been that rich either, which was why he and his brother had had to share a bike. If they had ever been in a situation like that then little Murphy would have been on a bike to follow them as well, and if he had been Daryl's brother then the hunter would have been able to ride a bike, too. Sometimes he hated how his brother instincts kicked in so violently, because the first thing he had imagined was how he would have beat the shit out of all the kids who didn't help Daryl, didn't include him and left him all alone without sharing a bike. He sighed and looked away. Oh how he hated that he wasn't a big brother anymore, how he didn't have the privilege of protecting his younger half, because there was no such thing anymore and because Daryl would never let him do that sort of thing. He was pretty sure that even little Daryl wouldn't have wanted anyone to help him.

"I ran around a corner and saw my friends looking at me. Hell, I saw everybody looking at me. Fire trucks everywhere. People from the neighborhood.
It was my house they were there for. That was my mom in bed. Burnt down to nothing."

Hearing Daryl's story made Connor feel both sad and uneasy. It made him upset to know that his friend's childhood and life had been one giant pile of shit, that a man who had his brother's face could live such a different life than his twin. Although they had always been poor Murphy had never suffered, never been sad, he had always been happy. That day when they had chained him to a toilet and almost killed his younger half had been the first time they had ever got to learn how cruel the world really could be, but in the end that was nothing compared to Daryl's life. It also made him feel uneasy because he had to think of his own mother, what a chain smoker she had been. Sometimes she had smoked cigarettes in bed, too, and sometimes she had fallen asleep while doing so as well, simply because she had been too drunk or whatever. The same story could have happened to him and his brother any day, and they both could've been orphans from one day to the next. He thanked god that they never had to lose their mother like that, but at the same time it also made it worse because this way they would never ever get to know how their mother had died, where she had died, if she had died...

"That was the hard part" Daryl went on and snapped the Irishman out of it.

"You know, she was just gone. Erased. Nothing left of her. People said it was better that way."

Connor snorted gently and shook his head.

"Yeah, I don't think so" he muttered but neither Carl nor Daryl heard him.

It didn't matter though, because he had been talking about his own mother anyway. Every once in a while he had to think about her, how many years had passed since they had last seen that crazy woman. At some day their phone calls had stopped, simply because it had been impossible to do this sort of thing ever since the police had been after them. They had tried to write her letters at first, especially when they had been in Ireland. He remembered how furious and upset she had been when she had discovered that her sons had ended up in the same prison as their father, and for a couple of weeks there had been no contact at all. A few weeks later the dead had started walking. This was the worst part. They never got to apologize and explain their mission, and he never got to tell his own mother that one of her sons was dead. Maybe this was a good thing, he thought, because he was pretty sure she would have killed him for losing Murphy. He sighed and shook his head. He hated today. His head hurt, he was pissed, he was depressed, and Daryl's story made it worse. Now he had to think about his past, his mistakes, everything he had lost and he wanted it to stop.

"I don't know. Just made it seem like it wasn't real, you know?"

"I shot my mom. She was out. Hadn't turned yet. I ended it. It was real" Carl spoke up then and they all stopped.

Daryl just looked at the boy, and it was Connor who put a hand on the boys shoulder and started walking again.

"You did the right thing, Carl. That was very brave. You did the thing that even I couldn't do" he muttered and walked past them because he didn't want to look at anyone and because he was fed up with this conversation.

He was honest about the whole thing. He admired the boy for his strength, his willpower to keep going and shoot his mother. Of course, it was a horrible thing to do and no child should ever have to do that, but at least he had spared Lori all the suffering that accompanied the turning and walking around as a dead person. This was the one part he would never forgive himself, apart from the fact that he had failed to protect his brother. What made it unforgivable was the fact that he had failed to save his brother from this, that he had let him turn into a walker. How he had just watched how his twin brother had turned into a monster before shooting him, freeing him. Funny that. Daryl had told him that he would feel better after getting rid of some of his brother's stuff. But this was quite the opposite. He felt like shit.

"Sorry about your mom" he heard Carl say to Daryl and checked another bunch of cells to keep his mind off things, so he could stop thinking about his dead family.
It just depressed the hell out of him.

"I'm sorry about yours" Daryl answered and when Connor turned around he could see how the hunter placed a hand on the kid's shoulder.

Once again he was surprised how much Daryl had changed, how his friend was able to be so gentle and caring about kids. He watched how the hunter placed a hand on Carl's back and nudged him with a gentle "Come on." Now he understood why his friend had been annoyed by his attempts to cheer Carl up. All of his jokes and silly voices and stories didn't seem to work anymore. The boy had never needed that sort of thing, what he had needed was some sort of honest comfort, coming from someone who didn't treat him like a child.

The Irishman couldn't help but smile then. Because he and Daryl were so different, and yet they really worked as a team. When someone failed to do something right because of his lack of experience and abilities then the other would always be there, and that was a beautiful and useful thing to be part of. It made him incredibly proud. He and Murphy had been like that, although they hadn't been so extremely different. In the end they had always been twins, always been brothers, so they had been different and yet the same. Now that Daryl really wasn't his brother and they really were entirely different it was both something incredibly refreshing and new, but also something he was very familiar with.

"Oh! That's what I'm talking about!" Oscar exclaimed and they all turned around to see what was going on.

The prisoner disappeared inside a cell.
Both Connor and Daryl looked at each other with a frown, and when the latter nodded both men and Carl went after their other member of the group.

"What did ye find, Ozzy? Walker?" Connor shouted and Daryl hushed him angrily.

When they finally entered the room they could see the prisoner kneel down to get some shoes.

"Yeah, buddy!" he cheered and the other two men frowned.

"What the hell you need slippers for?" Daryl muttered and Connor started chuckling.

Oscar looked at them.

"You know. End of the day? Relaxing."

The hunter looked at the man with a frown and the Irishman chuckled even more.

"What else can we get ye, grandma? Pink bathrobe? Hair rollers? Bathing cap?"

Oscar got back up and frowned.

"Shut up, man. You don't know nothing. Y'all gonna be lining up for these things by the end of the day."

They all froze when they heard a loud growl behind them. In just a matter of seconds the whole group turned around and drew their weapons to shoot the walker behind them. Everyone kept pulling the trigger a couple of times until the undead fell to the ground. The whole group was out of breath for a second and they looked at each other. Connor got out of the cell, slowly and carefully, to have a look at the walker.

"D'ye think he's dead?" he muttered and turned his head to look at the others.

He tried to stay serious but then he just had to laugh. Or maybe he forced himself to laugh, because he was getting sick of all the pathetic and depressed bullshit.

Even Daryl had to smile and took a deep breath.

"Alright" he muttered and pointed his flashlight at the dead body to take a closer look at it.

"Must have been in the cell at the end" Oscar observed and Daryl knelt down next to it.

"We checked everywhere else" the prisoner went on and Connor looked at him.

"Well, not everywhere, there's another corner over there and I think.."

"That's Carol's knife" they heard Daryl say and stopped talking.

The hunter was kneeling next to the dead body of the walker with a small knife in his hands. He wiped it on the undead's uniform and just looked at it.
For a while no one would say anything until Connor shifted a bit.

"So she was definitively here" he muttered but Daryl wouldn't answer.

The Irishman bit his lip and put his hands on his hips.

"Well, we didn't find her body in here. Maybe she got out. We gotta keep looking fer another door. Maybe..I dunno, maybe she got out and went back t'our cell block.
Maybe she's there now and.."

"She ain't got no weapon on her, dumbass. How do you think she got past all the walkers" the hunter interrupted him and Connor looked at the knife in his friend's hand.

"Maybe she..."

Daryl got up but wouldn't look at them. Because he knew what it meant. Carol didn't have any weapon, nothing to protect herself from walkers. And yesterday the block had been full of walkers. She just had to be dead. Just this morning he had been full of hope when he had found the Cherokee rose. He had thought it was a sign of hope, that he was going to find her. That after failing to bring Sophia back he would get the chance to save her life at least. But then he remembered what happened last time he had found a rose like that. Just an hour later they had found the girl. Dead. And now Carol's knife. He just knew that they were going to find her dead as well, that once again he had failed.

"How 'bout you three head back. 'm gonna check the corridor once more just to be thorough" he growled and started walking.

Oscar, Connor and Carl looked at each other. The Irishman gave the other two a silent nod and they started walking. The blonde nudged the prisoner when he passed him and made gestures towards his eyes and Carl, making it clear that Oscar was supposed to look after the boy. The other man nodded and nudged Rick's son to get him to move. Carl looked at Connor for a second, and the Irishman gave him a reassuring nod. As soon as he had made sure that they were gone the blonde went after his friend, who had disappeared around a corner by now. It didn't take the Irishman long and he could see Daryl, who was sitting on the ground and kept stabbing it with Carol's knife. The flashlight lay on the ground next to him, with its light still turned on. The blonde sighed and approached his friend.

"I thought we were gonna check the corridors?" he murmured quietly and kept walking until he was standing in front of him.

Daryl looked up for a second, then he resumed stabbing the ground again and looked down.

"I said you three head back."

Connor sighed and checked the corridor to their left and right. There was nothing but a couple of dead bodies on the ground.

"Ye know the rules. No running off on our own. Ye saw what happened t'me when I did that."

Daryl snorted.

"Yeah. Cos you're a brainless fucking idiot."

Connor still looked at him. With every second he stood there Daryl stabbed the ground more aggressively. They could still hear the creaking of the door to their left.

"We should take care of that walker" the Irishman muttered after a while and his friend growled.

"'m gonna do it. Just fuck off."

"Come on, ye can't seriously expect me t'.."

Daryl stabbed the ground hard again and looked up to give his friend a death glare.

"I said fuck off."

Connor sighed and rubbed his aching head.

"Listen, I know that Carol mattered t'ye. And it's real fucking sad she's gone but ye seriously gotta focus now..."

The Irishman's talk and the continuous banging of the door drove Daryl insane and made him more and more furious.
He stabbed the ground once more and got up with an angry grunt. Connor watched him and moved out of his way, but he kept talking.

"I'm sorry, really. She was a sweet lady, but ye can't search the whole fucking thing on yer own and think..."

"I said fuck off! Don't you get it!" Daryl suddenly yelled because he had enough.

He shoved his friend back against the wall and struck out to bury Carol's knife right next to his head, just a couple of millimeters away from his neck. Connor widened his eyes in surprise and turned his head away, and for a second he really thought that Daryl had stabbed him. The hunter was just as surprised. He hadn't meant to explode like that, to get so violent and dangerous all over again. For a second they just stood there like that and looked at each other. Connor's chest was heaving because of the sudden shock. Daryl was holding on to the knife that was stuck in the wall next to Connor's head and pressed his other forearm to his throat, his face nothing but a terrifying angry grimace.

"We really back t'this shit now? You lose Sophia y'try to fucking choke me, you lose Carol you try t'fucking stab me? Really?" Connor asked and stared at his friend in disbelief.

Daryl narrowed his eyes and let go.

"Just go" he growled and started pacing up and down the corridor, but once again Connor wouldn't move an inch.

He placed a hand on his neck to make sure everything was okay. The knife had been very close to his neck tattoo, but he wasn't bleeding, there was no scratch on him in fact, which was definitively an improvement compared to last time Daryl had attacked him like that. He watched how the hunter kept walking up and down like a nervous dog, and he knew that his friend was close to having another violent breakdown. When Daryl passed the shaking door once more he suddenly stopped and started kicking it hard. Connor had enough and approached him then.

"Just calm down now, alright?" he said and his friend looked at him for a second, then he pressed his lips together and knelt down to move the body away from the door so he could open it. He just wanted everybody and everything to shut up, and now that he had made Connor shut up he just needed to stop the door from shaking. When he grabbed his knife the Irishman took his as well and tried to help him, but Daryl shoved him away and ripped the door open. He was just about to stab the walker that kept moving it when he froze abruptly. He could see a dirty and bloody figure sitting there on the ground, and when she moved her head to look up at him he let go off his knife in shock. He knelt down and grabbed her chin.

"What is it?!" he heard Connor yell, but for a second he didn't know how to talk.

He looked at her, how weak and powerless she was, and when she gave him a faint smile he could finally talk again.

He looked out of the cell and stared at his friend in utter surprise.

"It's Carol!"