Kept Out (But Locked In)
That hunting run would certainly be engraved into Madeline's memory for the rest of her natural life. It was bad enough that every Walker with a functioning pair of ears was attracted to the god-awful noise Daryl's bike was making, but now came the soul-wrenching task of finding live animals to hunt in the first place. It also wasn't helping that the bigot was ever so bold with shooting down her vengeful antic with his brutish methods of getting even. She was certainly left with a thorn in her side and a moody attitude for their venture into the outdoors. They must have driven at least five miles east from the prison in search of possible game, where Daryl insisted that he had had a favorable outcome the last time he'd gone.
"You ever eaten squirrel before?" He dared to ask after they'd spent a good part of two hours chasing squirrel ghosts and hiding from hoards of Walkers that were passing through the forest. All they'd managed to find were four squirrels, three from Daryl's cross bow and one without a head from Madeline's lucky tomahawk shot. They certainly had brought real ammo to fight, but that didn't mean they were going to go out looking for one. They were on a fool's errand to find some food to pass the time, after all "idle hands do the devil's work", it wasn't too important that they score a ton of food. Daryl was still second-guessing why he'd gone in the first place, it was unnecessary, risky, stupid, and more importantly why he brought along Her. The pair was both equally yet oppositely frustrated in being cooped up at the prison 24/7 and it wasn't helping that in the late hours of the night Glen and Maggie were hitting their little love beats into the wee hours of the morning.
To Madeline she couldn't help but feel slightly jealous, at least someone was feeling alive around that place. It was forever and a day since she'd been laid to next Sunday, hell she hadn't even been intimately touched since Gerard grabbed her butt and-… Gerard… the thought shot into her heart like an arrow, slicing through her cheery demeanor with the cruelty of a sword. Madeline kept on walking; burying the sudden surge of grief with her convincing smile, hoping Daryl wouldn't notice the dent in her emotional armor that was slowly spreading like a cancer through her mind.
Daryl's sudden desire to be out of the prison was his frustration at the lack of sexual action; the fact that Glen was getting laid on a semi-regular basis was driving his manhood into a depression as a reminder that the last time he bumped uglies with a chick was this one girl named Beverly at a roadside bar in a bathroom stall in 2010. Another source of his misfortune was that he had been outrageously drunk and couldn't recall what she looked like, or that it had even happened in the first place, but he was always reminded when he took a leak at a gas station by Merle who liked to use the phrase, "Taking a Beverly" to torment him before, and occasionally during, the zombie apocalypse.
"Do I look like I was raised in a cave?" Madeline chided, rolling her eyes playfully as she skipped a rock across a flowing, muddy creek. Now that it was around five or six in the evening the sun was beginning to disappear behind the trees and the first specks of stars were beginning to dot the darkening sky. They were starting their trek back towards the bike to get home before dark when Daryl had noticed that she was actually the one leading him back towards their ride home. It wasn't that he took offense to her leading him around, but the way she kept talking to him with her face looking forward was starting to slightly irritate him
"You definitely won't like my answer to that one, sweetheart." He'd manage to outdo her in skipping rocks, accomplishing a seven-layer skip in one smooth stroke! Madeline hated to admit it, but she was beginning to like how Daryl was always showing off and parading himself around like a show-pony. It cheered up, strangely, like he was deliberately searching for ways to get her attention either positively, or asking for a punch to his diaphragm. At least he could distract her from her thoughts… "I should have protected them"
"Oh shut up, you know what I meant!" She laughed silently, glancing back at him sportingly over her shoulder, refusing to let her new companion know what was going on behind her mask.
Now that her long wavy hair was pulled back Daryl could see the tiny chain around her neck. He wasn't all too sure about how he felt about her with her hair up, but he found it sexy enough. "Whoa there, Dixon, have you lost your mind already?"
"Mind telling me how you know where you're going?" He said curiously, altering the course of his thoughts by increasing his footsteps slightly so that he could walk by her right side. It was slightly impressive that she could lead him this far on the right track, but he figured she was trying to bullshit him into thinking she was little Miss-Know-It-All… Again.
"Ya keep the sun on the left to find your way back; it was on the right when we got here hours ago so we have to do the opposite." She stated matter-of-factly, reaching inside her tank and rubbing her thumb across some dangling pieces of metal.
"Well I'll be damned." Daryl chuckled, half smiling at Madeline in the respect that she was proving to know a thing or two about survival. From the corner of her eye she returned the favor and smiled back at him, tucking the metal pieces back into her shirt before continuing on their path in silence.
"Well this is a first," Daryl thought in melancholy, adjusting his crossbow across his shoulder with the line of squirrels dangling from his back when they kept their silence going for the next couple minutes. "She's always running her mouth; I wonder why now she's become the silent type."
"Well shit, little brother, I never picked you for the sensitive type." Daryl could hear Merle taunting him, it was certainly annoying the hell out of him that even his dead brother had a thing or two to say compared to She-who-loves-to-talk-shit-all-the-time. Why did he care, though? He'd only met the girl a week ago, she just stormed in out of nowhere from a hole under the fence and almost got herself killed trying to find those kids…. Kids… Now that he'd struck his own emotional chord he realized what was suddenly going through Madeline's mind now that he was forced to think out losing Sophia. "Way to go, asshole." He cursed, feeling the bitter sting of guilt purge his mind when he thought about how much of a failure he turned out to be when he couldn't save the one person who didn't deserve to die in this fucked up shithole of a world. He hadn't even thought to empathize with her before, sharing in the emotional torture that all too similarly mirrored his own. It was five little words that spilled out that would change his life forever. He let one slip of the tongue alter how the rest of this night and the rest of the nights after that would be from then on.
"I lost a little girl." Daryl confessed darkly, barely loud enough for Madeline to hear over her own guilt-ridden thoughts.
"What?" Madeline halted; she turned around so fast to look him in the eyes that Daryl had to jerk his hands to her elbows to keep from bumping into her. Her skin was so cool to the touch that his hands felt like they were scalding to her soft, sensitive flesh. He breathed an apology before letting his grip go slack and dropped his hands to his side before continuing.
"A couple months ago, our group lost a little girl named Sophia. I spent days trying to find her when she was right under my goddamn nose and we lost her…" The weight of his words made Daryl look away in shame, he hated himself for letting Sophia die like that. She might not ever say it out loud, but he had always felt that in some way, Carol had always hated him for it too. After agonizing seconds or silence, he dragged his eyes from the side to look at Madeline. Her crystal blue eyes were shining with unshed tears, almost glowing in the twilight of the midnight blue forest. She didn't say a word, but with her eyes she was pleading for Daryl to reach out to her... to do something.
"I'm sorry…" She whimpered, dropping her head low and sniffling at the forest floor. "Good Lord, please don't do this to me…" Daryl's chest began to ache and his arms were turning to lead the longer he kept them glued to his sides. He wanted so badly to avoid this feeling, this strange sense of attachment that was sneaking through his smartass comments and wise-ass actions that normally pushed everyone and their mother away… but this little girl had to go and challenge him, to goad him into persisting with her and carrying on with their snide comments so he had to keep thinking of ways to irritate and bother her. She made it so hard to leave her alone when all she did was make him mad or feel like an idiot with her skill and meaningful conversations, what the hell was going on between them?!
"Stop cryin', it ain't your fault." He groaned, gently dropping his crossbow to the ground and placing their catch of squirrels beside it. Every step he took toward her was a wall he was breaking, an unsaid rule that was the only thing from keeping him from losing his mind in this unforgiving world. He was letting her in, and that was going to be the biggest mistake of his life, he knew it in his bones. The one thing that Daryl could never do was happening against all of his better judgments. His mind was screaming for him to stop while he still had a chance, to shove her away and shut down whatever was going on between them once and for all. Then it happened. Daryl Dixon slowly wrapped his arms around Madeline's fragile body and held her tightly against his chest, locking her delicate frame against his firm body with his hands gently rubbing the smooth of her back.
He was falling in love; and that idea for him was more terrifying that any Walker he had ever faced in his life.