Title: Fireman Dixon
Word Count: 2435
Universe: Non-zombie AU
Rating: General
Brief Summary: Daryl Dixon is on the night shift at the fire station when he gets called to a fire at the Greene family farm.
Notes: Written in response to an ask I got to "imagine firefighter Daryl Dixon". So I did. And it was very fun to imagine.
He was working the late shift at the station when the call came in. A fire, down at the Greene farm. Daryl was on his feet and moving before Tyreese was even finished taking the call and they were suited up and on the truck in barely a minute. T-dog drove the damn truck so fast he was amazed they didn't careen off the road. They'd have hurried for anyone, it was their job after all. But everyone knew the Greene family. Hershel was the town veterinarian and pretty much everyone'd had an animal taken to him at some point. His wife Annette was the nicest woman Daryl had ever met, although considering the sort of people he'd spent time with before settling here, maybe that wasn't so much of a surprise.
But she always had a kind word for him since the first day he'd moved here; when everyone else had only looked at him sideways and muttered under their breath, Annette had been sweet and kind and polite. Even friendly. They had three kids all told. Annette had told him about them all herself once when he'd been convinced by Rick Grimes- the sheriff, and his first friend in town (maybe his first friend ever)- to go to some stupid town fair. It had all seemed like bullshit to him, but Annette had been selling her pies at a booth there and before he'd known what had hit him, the lady had been chatting away at him and he hadn't even minded.
So he knew there was Maggie, Hershel's daughter from his first marriage who was in Atlanta right now for school, and Shawn, Annette's son from her first marriage who had gone off to play football last year for the Bulldogs. And of course there was Beth, Hershel and Annette's 18 year old daughter, the only one still living at home. She was almost the spitting image of her Ma, or at least she'd seemed it the few times he'd seen her, mostly from a distance. The same sunshine-blonde hair and big blue eyes and the sort of slender little figure that made her look like one tough breeze might blow her away. But he'd always wondered if maybe little Beth Greene was tougher than she looked.
The smell of smoke thick in his nostrils pulled Daryl from his thoughts just as they came down the long driveway to the farm and he couldn't help it; his throat clenches for a moment. He'd seen plenty of fires before in the couple years he'd been a fireman here. But nothing like this. Nothing like the sight of that barn gone up in flames, stark against the night sky. Nothing involving people he actually knew and maybe even liked.
"Please help!" A woman's voice echoed across the field as he climbed down from the truck and started reaching for his gear only to stop and turn when he realized who it was. Annette spotted him with the sharp cry. "Daryl! Oh thank god, Daryl it's Beth!" She clutched his arms, soot marking her cheek and her blue eyes big and wide with terror. "She ran back into the barn, she's in there now, Daryl you have to save her, please!"
He didn't hesitate. Didn't even think about it, just like he didn't think about how there's something twisting in his belly the moment he pictures that sweet blonde-haired girl trapped inside, surrounded by hungry flames.
She spoke to him once, when Rick and Lori had a cookout and invited him and the Greene family, along with half the town it seemed. Daryl never would have thought a girl like him would ever speak to a man like him; with his short dirty hair and his worn jeans and the leather vest he wore over his sleeveless shirt. But she came right up to him with Rick's daughter in her arms- Judy, they all called her- and gave him a slow smile. "Hey."
He'd just looked her over and grunted. He very nearly just turned and walked off. It was what he'd normally have done. But there was something about the way she was looking at him all sweet and open, that'd had him grumbling, "Ain't you got more interestin' people to talk to?"
And she'd just blinked at him and then given him that slow, sweet smile. "What if I think you're interesting?"
He hadn't talked to her much that day. He wasn't a talker then. Wasn't much more of one now. But as he stood there staring down the flames that licked and curled around the opening of the barn, her soft words echoed in his mind. What if I think you're interesting? And without hesitating, he ran right through the doorway and into the burning barn.
"Beth!" Flames crackled around him and smoke billowed in the air, enough to disorient anyone who hadn't been trained for something like this. Hell he had been trained and it was still fucking disorienting. "Beth!" He cried out her name again, straining ears honed by years and years of hunting out in the woods where the single crackle of a dry leaf could set you on the right path.
There. Above him, a cough coming from the loft of the barn. "I'm coming, Beth!" The ladder was in the corner of the barn and he had just a moment to be glad the fire hadn't reached it yet before he had to move. The weight of his uniform was something he'd long become accustomed to, and it didn't hold Daryl down as he climbed rung by rung up the later and onto the loft. Smoke rises, everyone knew that. Beth should have known that, but there was up in the smoke-filled loft, an almost impossibly small figure curled up in the corner by a bale of hay.
The closer he got, the more he could see her shoulders trembling as she coughed and again he felt that twist in his gut and the ache in his heart as he reached down to scoop her into his arms. "I got you. S'okay, I got you."
Her fingers curled into his arm and her eyes flew open. "Wait!" She ground the words out in a smoke-rough voice, coughing until her whole body shook.
"Can't wait, girl! We gotta get you out of here now."
He was staring to rise to his feet when she gripped his arm hard and forced the words out, "Sunshine! My cat, she's in the corner over there, I was tryin- tryin' to- to save-"
The coughs wracked her whole body and all Daryl could do was breathe out in disbelief, "You ran back in here to save your cat?"
Even through the haze of smoke she fixed her reddened eyes on him, forcing her coughing to subside long enough for her to whisper plaintively, "She has kittens."
Fucking kittens. Merle's voice echoed through his mind with a harsh laugh. This fucking girl risked her damn life for a litter of mewling rats. What a joke.
It wasn't a joke to Daryl. Not then, looking down at the girl in his arms and remembering the smile on her lips back at the cook-out, the way she tilted her head as she looked up at him and said so simply: What if I think you're interesting?
Of course a girl like that, with a mother like Annette and a father like Hershel, would risk her life to run into a burning barn and save a litter of damn kittens.
Well if it was that important to her, he wasn't gonna make it so she'd taken that risk for nothing.
"Stay low," he grunted, laying her back on the ground before he scooted across the loft over to the hay bales in the corner. It only took a few seconds before he heard the soft peeps and looked down to see a gray cat curled around a litter of four little squeaking kittens. Shit.
"Gonna put them in this bag okay? Best I can do. And I'm gonna need you to hold onto it, okay?" He put the mama cat into the black bag first, grateful the smoke had taken the fight out of her. The kittens followed one after the other, curling around and on top of her as he zipped the top but left a slight gap.
"C'mon, girl. You're gonna have to hold on tight." With a grunt he picked her up and slung her over his broad shoulders in a fireman's carry like she weighed nothing at all and the truth was, she barely did. She was like a damn feather. Even when she grabbed the strap of the bag of cats the weight was barely nothing. His muscles tightened and stretched but he moved slowly and carefully, climbing down the ladder to the ground with her in his arms.
A minute later when he burst out the front door with her cradled bridal-style in his arms and a bag of kittens resting in her lap, all he heard was Annette's grateful cries, "My baby, oh thank you, oh thank you so much Daryl, you saved my baby!"
Daryl wasn't much for thanks. Once he got Beth to Bob, the paramedic on duty tonight, he was pretty much out of there. After a handshake from Hershel and another enthusiastic hug from Annette, of course.
But Beth Greene lingered in his mind. He couldn't stop seeing her big eyes all reddened from the smoke, her pink lips cracked, her voice strained as she plaintively whispered about saving the kittens, when she was the one lying up there choking on smoke.
Somehow, his day off came and he ended up at the hospital. Tyreese's sister Sasha was a nurse there and she was the one who directed him up to the right room. If she gave him a little smile before sending him on his way, Daryl ignored it. He wasn't even sure why he was here. The truth was if he'd found anyone else in the room, he'd have left.
But there wasn't anyone there. No one but him, stepping awkwardly into the room and her, laying on the hospital bed. She still looked so small against the cotton sheets. But she was all clean now, no more soot on her face and her blonde hair shining like a halo spread across her pillow. Her eyes weren't reddened, either, and her lips were soft as they curved into a smile at the sight of him.
"Hey," she breathed out in a voice still soft and hoarse, "My hero."
"Ain't no hero," he grunted without thinking about it, sticking his hands in his pockets and scuffing his foot against the ground.
"Yes you are. You climbed up there and saved me after I ran up there like an idiot after my cat." Her soft voice wormed it's way into his thoughts until he looked up at her from under his furrowed brow. "You're kind of like my knight in shining armor, Daryl Dixon. Although it wasn't so shiny and you didn't ride a horse, but it was still armor. And you're still like a knight."
He took one step closer and stopped, his shoulders all hunched up. "Ain't no knight. Just doing my job."
"If you say so." But the sound of her voice had him looking up at her again and he could see the way she was smiling. Couldn't practically hear her voice whispering in his mind now, adding my knight in shining armor to what if I think you're interesting.
He scuffed his foot once on the ground, and then ventured roughly, "Weren't stupid, y'know. Goin' after your cat and her kittens. I think it was brave."
"You do?" He nodded, and his reward was the smile that curved up her lips even wider and brightened her big blue eyes. "I still think it was alittle stupid."
"Maybe." He chuckled, but as the laughter faded Daryl found himself just standing there looking down at her, feeling out of place and yet… and yet he didn't quite want to leave. So when she began to softly cough, he moved to her side without thinking and poured her a cup of water and even helped her hold it to her lips to make sure she didn't spill it.
When he set the half-empty cup back down and looked over at her, so much closer now and still with those big eyes on him, he asked without thinking, "How're the cats, anyway?"
"They all made it. Mama told me when she came to visit. Do you…" She blinked, and he was surprised to see a faint flush go over her cheeks. "Do you wanna hear about them, maybe?"
He didn't even think about it. Just lowered himself slowly into the chair next to her bed and leaned back to stretch his legs out in front of him with a nod. "Alright."
He just listened with amusement as she told him about Sunshine and her litter of kittens, and how she planned on naming one of them Dixon, because it was a little brave thing that liked to charge into trouble all the time. He didn't even argue, though a part of him wanted to.
Just like he didn't argue when she mentioned him coming by the next day on his break, or the day after that. In fact, Daryl visited her in the hospital every day that week until Thursday when the Doctors said she was ready to go home, and each day he came into her room with his head ducked, she just smiled at him.
She had the same smile on her lips that Friday when he came by the farmhouse after work and she opened the door to greet him. Just smiled at him like she'd never been happier, and brought him right into the house to show him Dixon, his namesake. Her Mom convinced him to stay for dinner, but it was Beth he stayed for really. Her and her smile… and the look in her eyes later that night when they walked out past the husk of the burnt-up barn.
There beneath the stars she called him her 'hero' again and leaned up on her toes to kiss his cheek when he didn't protest.
He still didn't think he was a hero. But he couldn't find it in him to protest when she was so close and smelling so sweet and kissing his cheek. He didn't much mind being called a hero, at least by Beth Greene anyway.
