SPOILERS FOR 5.6, Consumed. Genfic, not romance.
Down the hall, the little girl walker scrabbles against the glass. The faint sound is all that fills the silence.
Then Daryl sets his crossbow down on the desk with a thump. He takes up position by the window. This time, there's not enough left in her to argue, and she climbs up onto the top bunk without a word.
She won't dream. Nightmares mean nothing anymore. She's seen worse.
She closes her eyes and listens. The hunter can move without a sound when he wants to, but he's not hunting now. She can hear the creak of leather when he moves, the rasp of nails when he runs a hand over his face. He's restless. Worried about Beth.
It's too late to end well, but tomorrow, she'll follow him in. He needs closure. She can help him find that, at least.
Her eyes open for a moment, searching for the man at the window. She can just make him out against the faint square of moonlight, framed against the silent streets of Atlanta. Searching.
She turns onto her side and waits for exhaustion to claim her. Finally, blackness comes.
It takes a while, but eventually her breath evens out in sleep. He waits, not sure if it will stick. Ten minutes pass.
When he's certain she won't wake, Daryl takes his weapons and goes down the hall. He has walkers to deal with.
They wait for him behind frosted glass. Mother and child. He shuts the door behind him so no noise will escape. They move listlessly, unaware of his presence, and he watches the smaller figure for a moment.
Putting down walkers is something he doesn't think about much anymore. It's survival, like hunting, and it doesn't matter much what they used to be. It's not hard to release the arrow.
But this is a little girl, Sophia's size. He can see the shape of small hands as they scrabble up against the glass. The glass hides the color of her hair, but he can make out the fall of it, a little longer than Sophia's. To kill them quietly he's going to have to open the door and let them in.
He pulls the knife from his belt and holds it ready. He opens the door with his left, stabs once with his right. The blade stabs down into the brain. Slides out wet. The walker falls away from the blade, crumpling to the floor. Then the child.
Daryl stands over the still forms and scans the rest of the room. No surprises. When he's sure the room is clear, he wipes the blade down and sheathes it before he looks down.
The little girl's corpse lays over her mother's. Blonde hair, just alike.
He turns away for something to wrap them in. She shouldn't have to see their faces. There's a bunk bed in here too, so he strips the sheets from the thin mattress. He kneels, spreading out the sheet in a clear spot on the floor. With both hands, he smoothes out the wrinkles. Then sits back and rests on his knees.
The dead walkers lie a few feet away, waiting for him, but he wants the shroud to be neat. They're walkers when he kills them, but after, he remembers. She was loved. A few strands of hair are still caught in a loose braid, and he can imagine the mother's fingers at work. With a grunt, he heaves himself to his feet.
The body weighs almost nothing. In his arms, it seems tiny, and he lays the girl down gently in the center of the smooth, white sheet. The rotted face and death reek leave no room for pretend, but he can't stop himself from touching the falling braid. It's the work of a few minutes to untangle the worst of it, and he's made enough snares to try to fix it. Then he gets a hold of himself and lets his hands fall away. He wraps the sheet around her and knots the ends, and soon the mother joins her.
With both bundles against the wall, Daryl sits down on the bare mattress. Probably the first man to sit in this room. This shelter. He can't see her here. The room seems small, secret, but there's a whole row of rooms just like it, and a city outside. Better than most, he knows how fucked up things can be, but he can't see picture her running.
But then he thinks of the gas can in her hand.
Daryl gets up and leaves the dead behind. He can deal with the bodies in the morning, but right now it's the living he's concerned with.
He shuts the door behind him. Makes his way back down the hall. She's still sleeping, and he settles into the bunk beneath her, listening to the sound of her breath in the silence. Maybe she's right. Maybe he can't save everyone. But he can try.